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Conference call notes 20260617

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Kenneth Hoste edited this page Jun 21, 2026 · 1 revision

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Notes on the 296th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday 17 June 2026 (15:00 UTC / 17:00 CEST)

Attendees

List of attendees (13):

  • Simon Branford (Univ. of Birmingham, UK)
  • Jorge Delgado Guerrero (University of Luxembourg)
  • Davide Grassano (CECAM)
  • Leonardo Honfi Camilo (Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands)
  • Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent)
  • Georgios Kafanas (University of Luxembourg)
  • Kurt Lust (University of Antwerp, LUMI)
  • Mikael Öhman (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)
  • Jan Reuter (JSC, Germany)
  • Jarne Renders (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)
  • Åke Sandgren (Umeå University, Sweden)
  • Alain van Hoof (TU Eindhoven, Netherlands)
  • Cintia Willemyns (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)

Agenda

  • overview of recent developments
  • update of common toolchains
  • Q&A

Recent developments

News

  • ...

Merge sprints

  • see also dedicated HackMD
  • Mon 15 June 2026
    • moderate success, pushed down from ~720 to now ~685 open easyconfig PRs
    • 300 open easyconfig PRs less than 1 year ago (985 on 16 June'25)
  • future easyconfigs merge sprints planned:
    • Mon 17 Aug 2026
    • Mon 19 Oct 2026
    • Mon 21 Dec 2026
    • Mon 15 Feb 2027
    • aiming for semi-fixed schedule every other month: 3rd Monday in even months
  • at some point a sprint to revise & close outdated open issues across different EasyBuild repos

Merged PRs

(changed made in PRs marked with * are included latest EasyBuild stable release)

  • blog/docs (merged PRs)

    • bug fixes
      • ...

  • framework (merged PRs)

    • bug fixes
      • don't call render when using --dep-graph to create .dot file (PR #5171)
      • Fix duplicate counting of progress in obtain_file (PR #5174)
        • fix for regression introduced in EasyBuild v5.3.0 via PR #5014
      • enhance cmd.sh so it works in non-interactive mode, like when passing -c to run a command (PR #5187)
    • enhancements
      • document where architecture dicts are allowed in easyconfig parameters & fix version templates for removed dependencies (PR #5150)
      • add options --include-job-backends and --avail-job-backends (PR #5178)
      • remove repetition of shell command in log (PR #5195)
      • add get_ptrace_scope function to systemtools to determine value for ptrace_scope (PR #5199)
    • changes
      • ...
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • CI/test suite
      • fix copy-paste error in test_toy_cuda_sanity_check and simplify (PR #5183)
      • use flex instead of bzip2 for end-to-end tests in CI (+ update CI workflows) (PR #5196)
      • fix test_github_merge_pr by using more recent easyconfig PR (PR #5197)
    • other
      • ...

  • easyblocks (merged PRs)

    • bug fixes
      • Allow for either Mesa or OpenGL as dependency for VMD (PR #4147)
      • enhance SAMtools easyblock to specify ncursesw libraries to link to via CURSES_LIB (PR #4149)
      • use sanity_check_load_module in sanity check step of custom easyblock for GROMACS (PR #4151)
      • fix incorrect plugins path in ABAQUS easyblock, which fixes long startup times (PR #4152)
      • trickle down modified build directory to bundle components in custom easyblock for gnupg-bundle (PR #4157)
    • enhancements
      • enable hwloc, cuFFTMp, and HeFFTe support in GROMACS easyblock (PR #3531)
      • enhance custom easyblock for OpenMPI to add ROCm support (PR #4132)
      • support postinstallcmds for Dataset generic easyblock (PR #4138)
      • add logging if PyTorch tests were successful (PR #4140)
      • improve error reporting for Python package without any close matches in output of pip list (PR #4155)
      • make custom easyblock for MRtrix aware of configopts easyconfig parameter (PR #4158)
      • ignore compiler-rt and lldb test failure for ptrace_scope > 1 in LLVM easyblock (PR #4159)
    • updates
      • ...
    • changes
      • ...
    • new
      • add custom easyblock for ESPResSo (PR #4066)
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • CI
      • ...

  • easyconfigs (merged PRs)

    • ~125 easyconfig PRs were merged since last conf call
    • bug fixes/reports
      • fix iqtree detection issue and hardcoded paths for TEtrimmer v1.7.2 (PR #21624)
      • add Python as dependency for Wannier90 as some scripts are using "/usr/bin/env python" (PR #26166)
      • add alternate package checksums for R-bundle-CRAN v2025.11 (PR #26170)
      • add alternative checksum for msigdbr in R-bundle-Bioconductor 3.22 w/ foss/2025a + R 4.5.1 (PR #25796, PR #26173)
      • add missing googletest build dependency to easyconfig for spglib 2.5.0 (to avoid it being downloaded during the installation) (PR #26186)
      • add patch for Libint 2.11.1 to fix flaky test failure (PR #26194)
      • add patch for scipy 1.17.1 to relax tolerance for tests failing on Arm Neoverse V1 system (PR #26223)
      • fix linking issues with libiconv and fontconfig dependencies of gnuplot 6.0.x (PR #26224)
      • add alternative checksum for metadat and metafor libraries in R-bundle-CRAN 2025.10 (PR #26244)
      • also use patch to disable opal_lifo test on RISC-V for OpenMPI 5.0.8 w/ GCC 14.3.0 (as it is done with llvm-compilers toolchain) (PR #26252)
      • avoid that all cores are used for running MEME tests by patching test_driver script (PR #26253)
      • add patch to M4 v1.4.20 to allow building with glibc v2.43 (PR #26255)
      • add -std=gnu89 to $CFLAGS for UnZip 6.0 to fix building on Ubuntu 26.06 (PR #26258)
      • add patch to fix dead link for TEtrimmer 1.7.2 (PR #26281)
    • enhancements
      • Replace whl with source build in gensim 4.4.0 (PR #26277)
        • PyPI source tarball didn't work (pre-baked Cython files for old version), but GitHub sources do work fine
    • (noteworthy) new software
      • ...
    • noteworthy software updates
    • cleanup
      • ...
    • changes
      • ...
    • CI

Open (active) PRs

  • blog/docs (open PRs + issues)

    • LSP for easyconfigs (WIP) (Draft PR #16)
      • Language Server Protocol
    • Add documentation for generating exts_list for a JuliaBundle (PR #377)
    • Add documentation for new Rich Theme/Highlighter entrypoints (PR #381)

  • framework (open PRs + issues)

    • bugs
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • New wrapped CLI using click (PR #4961)
      • Add customizable Themes and Highlighters for rich colors in print_msg (PR #5169)
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • changes
      • Sort values for cuda_compute_capabilities templates (PR #5144)
        • strictly speaking a breaking change, so can't be merged as is (for EasyBuild 5.x)
    • CI/test suite
      • ...

  • easyblocks (open PRs + issues)

    • bug fixes/reports
      • make sure that RPATH section for binaries in Rust 1.90.0+ installation includes path to runtime libraries of GCC compiler (PR #4156)
    • enhancements
      • Avoid using user-HOME when installing RPackage (PR #3911)
      • Add functions to generate exts_list for a JuliaBundle starting from a Manifest.toml (PR #4121)
      • Rework of the JuliaPackage easyblock (PR #4146)
        • custom easyblock for Julia (but still pre-built Julia, not from source)
        • doesn't require changes in easyconfigs, but allows for some cleanup
    • updates
      • refactor Score-P easyblock and prepare for v10.0 (PR #4133)
    • changes
      • disable rust.lld for Rust >= 1.90, use system linker instead (WIP PR #4153)
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • new easyblocks
      • ...

  • easyconfigs (open PRs + issues)

    • bug fixes/reports
      • add patch for graniterapids support to OpenBLAS-0.3.27 (PR #25730)
    • enhancements
      • ...
    • (noteworthy) new software
      • ...
    • software updates
      • ...
    • changes
      • ...

Common toolchains

  • {foss/intel/lfoss}/2026.1
  • 2026.1 toolchain definitions:
    • included in EasyBuild 5.3.0!
    • foss/2026.1 component versions (all latest release)
      • GCC 15.2
      • FlexiBLAS 3.5.0 + OpenBLAS 0.3.32 + BLIS 2.0
      • OpenMPI 5.0.10 + UCX 1.20.0 + libfabric 2.5.0 + PMIx 6.1.0
      • FFTW 3.3.10
    • intel/2026.01 component versions
      • GCC 15.2
      • intel-compilers 2025.3.3
      • impi 2021.17.2
      • imkl 2025.3.1
    • lfoss/2026.01 component versions
      • like foss/2026.01, but with LLVM 21.1.8
      • needed to fix use of -march=native on Arm with LLVM, using -mcpu=native instead
  • For newer toolchains: GCC 15.3 + 16.1 have been released

Q&A / other

  • next toolchain in JSC will be based on foss/2026.1, lfoss will also be installed
  • next numba release will require LLVM 22.x
    • may require llvm-lite thingie when using 2026.1 toolchain (which uses LLVM 21.x)
    • current numba release requires LLVM 20.x
    • could do minimal LLVM and link it statically (as we did in 2024a generation)

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