LAM users --
If you could indulge me for a minute, I'd like to take a poll of all
you "regular users" out there. As you know, we're working heavily on
Open MPI (http://www.open-mpi.org/). We anticipate a first stable
release in 1Q 2005.
SHORT VERSION:
--------------
1. If Open MPI uses a build system that requires extra tools (such as
cmake or jam or ...) to be installed in order to be built from source,
would this be a deterrent to you installing Open MPI from a source
tarball?
2. If you answered yes to #1, what kind of system will you want to use
Open MPI on? I.e., what [specific] flavor of system (architecture,
operating system and version, etc.) would we need to provide a binary
version of Open MPI for you to install?
LONGER VERSION:
---------------
One of the LAM technologies that was ported to Open MPI was the
configure/build system. It relies heavily upon GNU Autoconf, Automake,
and Libtool. It's been improved quite a bit from the original LAM code
but is essentially the same essence. The major advantage of this
system is that it is trivial for a user to install -- you untar it and
then run "./configure ... ; make all install". Users do not need any
additional tools to be installed (aside from "make" and a set of
compilers, which most users already have).
However, it still has a lot of shortcomings (at least from a
developer's perspective). One big drawback: it's slow. It takes quite
a long time to compile Open MPI (and LAM). Users don't generally care
about this (right?) because they only do it once, but it does cost a
lot of lost developer time. In short: we're interested in making the
configure/build system better, stronger, and have fewer carbs.
As such, we're investigating other build systems, such as cmake and
jam. These are fine systems, but they have one critical difference
from AC/AM/LT: users who want to build and install Open MPI will have
to have cmake/jam/whatever installed. Specifically, before you can
build Open MPI from source, you would need to download and install
cmake/jam/whatever.
The debate is raging between the Open MPI developers :-), so I thought
I'd ask real users what you thought. Would it be a problem for you to
install some secondary tool to build Open MPI? And if so, what systems
would you need binaries for?
Keep in mind -- none of this has been decided yet. We may go with
cmake/jam/whatever, or we may stay with AM/AM/LT. Indeed, if people
ask for binaries for too many systems, it's questionable as to whether
we could actually provide them all, anyway. The point here is that I
want to find out what you want/need. Specific user requests will help
us make a decision balanced between your input and developer needs.
Many thanks!
--
{+} Jeff Squyres
{+} jsquyres_at_[hidden]
{+} http://www.lam-mpi.org/
|
