dorsal team mailing list archive

[Johan Hake <johan.hake@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Saturday June 18 2011 05:32:09 Harish Narayanan wrote:
> On 6/18/11 9:26 AM, Johan Hake wrote:
> > Hello!
> > 
> > I have now instaled FEniCS (agian) on a CentOS5 using rhel5.platform as a
> > template. Attached is a diff that "worked" for me. Not sure why but
> > several of the suggested rmp packages were not available from CentOS yum
> > so I had to add them as packages for dorsal to install. That went
> > smooth!
> > 
> > I installed most of the packages one by one, and I used python2.6,
> > because I needed that for other reasons. So the suggestion is not fool
> > proofed...
> > 
> > I also added a bunch of packages to dorsal: sympy, matplotlib, cppunit,
> > ipython, python2.6
> > 
> > Most of these are not strictly needed by FEniCS but can be nice :)
> > 
> > I also modified python and numpy by adding a shared lib option and a
> > symlink.
> > 
> > It would be cool if we were able to use PYTHONVER to set which Python
> > version is chosen. We need that variable set for the symlink in the
> > numpy script. Not exactly sure how the logic should work out. Someone
> > with better Bash/Dorsal skills might have suggestions. Maybe using some
> > python2.X.package files which get loaded dependent on the PYTHONVER
> > variable?
> > 
> > How can one set variables in on package file which should be looked for
> > in another file? For example we could hardcode PYTHONVER in the
> > python2.X files and then skip it as an option in the platform file,
> > which I am using now.
> 
> I just realised that you have reinvented a really old version of
> rhel5.platform. (Notice that you are closer to the way rhel4.platform
> looks than rhel5.platform looked before your recent edits.) At some
> point, someone suggested using an additional repository (EPEL) which
> contains many of the packages you've reverted to using Dorsal for. That
> is why you didn't find them in vanilla CentOS yum.

Ok. Maybe we should create a kitchen sink platform? Which should very much 
look like the present rhel5 file? Someother packages which should be included?

> Anyway, on a cluster or something where you have little control over the
> entire machine, the only way to do it is to use Dorsal for everything as
> you have. If you have the time, please edit the instructions on top of
> rhel5.platform to reflect what is really necessary, and also check
> whether you can get way with setting PYTHONVER=2.6 in that file

My thought was to either set PYTHONVER in the platform file and use 
python.package and it would be smart enough to install the correct version, 
defaults to 2.7, or use python2.X.package files and hardcode the version in 
that way. The latter is easier, but then we need to set the PYTHONVER variable 
in the python2.X.pacakge files. Do you do that with a simple export?

Johan

> Harish