come up with a better quick demo

[boegel]

Currently, building the goalf toolchain and subsequently building HPL with it is our current 'quick' demo.

It has a couple of problems, i.e.:

• it's not quick: building GCC takes about an hour, building ATLAS may take a lot longer
• building ATLAS on a VM tends to fail, depending on the VM
• older versions of ATLAS (e.g. v3.8.4 being used in goalf-1.1.0-no-OFED) do not support new architectures, e.g. Sandy Bridge

[JensTimmerman]

I propose this list in order of changes of problems:

1. very simple testcase: a tarball: Java
2. simple testcase: gzip with a dummy toolchain
3. testcase: gompi
4. build toolchain: goolf
5. package with no dependencies: gzip with goolf
6. package with dependencies dolfin
7. package with os dependencies: ?

we could make this the demo,
people can choose how far the are willing to go in the process. (depending on their needs)

[stdweird]

the default and advertised demo should do a full toolchain build and install some piece of software that does something.
1 and 2 should be examples of what EB also supports, but have almost no added value to promote EB.

for item 4: toolchain to use should be goolf (openblas build is < 10 minutes on my laptop, and this includes a regtest). for reference, on my laptop GCC from scratch (ie incl source download) takes approx 30minutes

[stdweird@localhost ((unknown)) ~]$ head -2 $EBROOTGCC/easybuild/easybuild-GCC-4.6.3-20130103.223606.log 
== 2013-01-03 22:36:06,475 main.EB_GCC INFO Log initialized with name GCC version 4.6.3 to file /tmp/easybuild-GCC-4.6.3-20130103.223606.log on host localhost.localdomain
== 2013-01-03 22:36:06,475 main.EB_GCC INFO This is EasyBuild 1.1.0dev (framework: 1.1.0dev, easyblocks: 1.1.0dev)
[stdweird@localhost ((unknown)) ~]$ tail -2 $EBROOTGCC/easybuild/easybuild-GCC-4.6.3-20130103.223606.log 
== 2013-01-03 23:08:08,939 main.main INFO Collecting build stats...
== 2013-01-03 23:08:08,975 main.EB_GCC INFO Closing log for application name GCC version 4.6.3

a demo under 1 hour on recent system should be fine. if you are truly impatient, we'll put an edited screencast on youtube ;)

[fgeorgatos]

As regards the following, I think it is mostly doable for v1.2:

1. very simple testcase: a tarball: Java
2. simple testcase: gzip with a dummy toolchain
3. testcase: gompi
4. build toolchain: goolf
5. package with no dependencies: gzip with goolf
6. package with dependencies dolfin
7. package with os dependencies: ?

Here is a suggestion as a 3rd party, for a progressive way to learn EasyBuild's ins & outs:

1. I suggest ABINIT, because it's simple, but not so simple that it is irrelevant: https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-easyconfigs/blob/develop/easybuild/easyconfigs/a/ABINIT/ABINIT-7.0.5-x86_64_linux_gnu4.5.eb # bbcp-12.01.30.00.0-amd64-linux26.eb is also interesting and smaller tarball
2. Ken was interested in this & I also think that PCC or TCC would be suitable toys - ask for the PR, if you like it:
   https://github.com/fgeorgatos/easybuild.experimental/blob/master/users/fgeorgatos/extras/PCC-1.0.eb
   https://github.com/fgeorgatos/easybuild.experimental/blob/master/users/fgeorgatos/extras/TCC-0.9.25.eb
   • Until this point you should have success on any system with python running, including MacOSX (checked)
   • EasyBlocks kick-in below so you get exposed to more complex failure modes, too.
3. I think FFTW-3.3.1-gompi-1.1.0-no-OFED.eb is the right kind of item here, along with some eb --try-toolchain=gompi zlib-1.2.7-goalf-1.1.0-no-OFED.eb # most people would start getting a feeling of the features here
4. AS-IS: goolf!
5. CMake-2.8.4-go?lf-1.1.0-no-OFED.eb (or R?) would be great AND useful for most sysadmins
6. Avoid DOLFIN due to the MTL4 annoyance; Rather pick WRF-3.3.1-go?lf-1.1.0-no-OFED-dmpar.eb;
   The latter 1 has been proven reliable over many releases # at this point, people should start bowing in respect
7. The best thing at this stage is to initiate massive parallel builds - that really kicks the tyres of your system

[fgeorgatos]

oops, just realized that without goolf, it's a bummer for steps 4 onwards, and we don't have that yet for v1.2.. OK.

[fgeorgatos]

1. ABINIT & bbcp
2. PCC or TCC
3. gompi # this is critical to be done as separate step for beginners, because you may need to tune the result!
4. goolf
5. Either R or another package that promotes its version regularly, with --try-version
6. w/WRF/3.3.1-goolf-1.4.10-dmpar # first build of some complexity
7. petsc4py # if you arrive here, you are at a good stage for a beginner and need to start exploring...

[boegel]

PR for TCC (and co) is available at easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs#486, that could be a first start for a better toolchain for the quick demo and for use in tutorial sessions, etc.