[Fedora-packaging] Draft for the use of environment-modules

[Jussi Lehtola]

On Wed, 2009-07-22 at 16:10 +0200, Milos Jakubicek wrote:
> On 22.7.2009 10:37, Jussi Lehtola wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> > I have worked out a rough draft for the use of environment-modules
> > instead of alternatives. Feel free to comment or modify it.
> >
> > I'd also like to suggest a feature that all MPI compilers/libraries use
> > solely environment-modules (no alternatives support). Currently, the
> > only MPI compiler in Fedora that still uses alternatives is mpich2.
> >
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/EnvironmentModules
> 
> +1 for the proposal as well as for the suggestion regarding MPI 
> compilers. I'm currently working on orsa to use the MPI via 
> environment-modules, the way OpenMPI is currently packaged is just fine 
> and it would be great if packages of other MPI implementations would 
> follow it.

Maybe we should also discuss about the way MPI programs are packaged.
Some possible options:

1. Package only using preferred Fedora compiler (OpenMPI at the moment)
2. Package at least using preferred Fedora compiler (OpenMPI), packages
for other compilers is up to the packager
3. Make packages for every MPI compiler in the distribution.

I'm leaning towards 2 (or maybe 3). This requires, however, some
standard on naming. Often parallelized software can also be compiled in
serial mode. My suggestion for the naming would be

foo - serial program
foo_mpi (or foo_ompi, or foo_openmpi) - parallel, OpenMPI
foo_mpich2 - parallel, mpich2
foo_lam - parallel, LAM (has been obsoleted for years but still
available in Fedora)
foo_mvapich - parallel, MVAPICH (not yet in Fedora)
foo_mvapich2 - parallel, MVAPICH (not yet in Fedora)
-- 
Jussi Lehtola
Fedora Project Contributor
jussilehtola at fedoraproject.org