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Conference call notes 20260701

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Kenneth Hoste edited this page Jul 1, 2026 · 1 revision

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Notes on the 297th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday 1 July 2026 (15:00 UTC / 17:00 CEST)

Attendees

List of attendees (8):

  • Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent)
  • Adam Huffman (University of Oxford, UK)
  • Mikael Öhman (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)
  • Jan Reuter (JSC, Germany)
  • Jörg Saßmannshausen (Imperial College London, UK)
  • Roberto Scipioni (Red Oak Consulting)
  • Alain van Hoof (TU Eindhoven, Netherlands)
  • Cintia Willemyns (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)

Agenda

  • overview of recent developments
  • Q&A

Recent developments

News

Merge sprints

  • future easyconfigs merge sprints planned:
    • Mon 17 Aug 2026
      • => reschedule to Mon 10 Aug?
    • 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  • at some point a sprint to revise & close outdated open issues across different EasyBuild repos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)

    • document EasyBuild governance (PR #374)

  • framework (merged PRs)

    • bug fixes
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • Use bounded git rev-list for version detection (PR #5201)
      • Improve --bwrap to work with r/o filesystems (overlayfs) and --subdir-{modules,software} (PR #5173)
    • changes
      • ...
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • CI/test suite
      • split running test suite with Python 3.9 and Lmod 8.x with Lua/Tcl module syntax in two jobs, only use GitHub token with Lua module syntax (PR #5208)
      • update actions used in CI workflows to latest versions (PR #5209, PR #5210)
    • other
      • ...

  • easyblocks (merged PRs)

    • bug fixes
      • make sure that RPATH section for binaries in Rust 1.90.0+ installation includes path to runtime libraries of GCC compiler (PR #4156)
      • fix --sanity-check-only for netcdf4-python (PR #4161)
      • call set_ulimit in PythonPackage easyblock in prepare step rather than constructor, to fix error due to unresolved templates (PR #4164)
        • fix for regression in develop (introduced in PR #4144), fixed before EasyBuild v5.3.1 release
      • fix sanity check step in TensorRT easyblock: sanity_check_paths must have both 'files' and 'dirs' key (PR #4169)
      • fix test_step not failing in sympy easyblock (PR #4172)
    • enhancements
      • Add support for NVHPC to Boost easyblock (PR #3906)
      • enhance run_pip_list function to print warning for mismatched Python package names or versions (PR #4109)
        • this check is disabled for PyTorch for now, because it's tricky to fix
      • Use bounded git rev-list for version detection (PR #4163)
    • updates
      • ...
    • changes
      • ...
    • new
      • ...
    • code cleanup
      • generalize Kokkos mapping in LAMMPS and Kokkos easyblock (PR #4107)
    • CI
      • update actions used in CI workflows to latest versions (PR #4168)

  • easyconfigs (merged PRs)

    • ~XXX easyconfig PRs were merged since last conf call
    • bug fixes/reports
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • ...
    • (noteworthy) new software
      • ...
    • noteworthy software updates
      • ...
    • cleanup
      • ...
    • changes
      • ...
    • CI
      • ...

Open (active) PRs

  • blog/docs (open PRs + issues)

    • update composition of Steering Committee (PR #385)

  • framework (open PRs + issues)

    • bugs
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • reduce number of module load commands used to set up build environment (WIP PR #5211)
        • will result in significant speedup for easyconfigs that have a lot of extensions...
      • also bwrap module directories (PR #5214)
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • changes
      • ...
    • CI/test suite
      • ...

  • easyblocks (open PRs + issues)

    • bug fixes/reports
      • Re-add removed sanity-check dirs to TensorRT easyblock (PR #4170)
      • fix OpenMPI and UCX easyblocks w.r.t. ROCm support (PR #4173)
      • LAMMPS: workarround for ARM builds with CUDA and ARM (PR #4175)
    • enhancements
      • add new CargoMesonNinja generic easyblock (PR #4171)
        • relevant for librsvg
    • updates
      • refactor Score-P easyblock and prepare for v10.0 (PR #4133)
    • changes
      • ...
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • new easyblocks
      • ...

  • easyconfigs (open PRs + issues)

    • bug fixes/reports
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • ...
    • (noteworthy) new software
      • ...
    • software updates
      • numba w/ foss/2026.1 (PR #26383)
        • requires older LLVM (20.x vs 21.1.8 we have for 2026.1 generation)
        • LLVM included in this PR is not a minimal/lite version, should be to avoid trouble, see existing -llvmlite LLVM easyconfigs
        • PyOMP won't work on top of this numba, but that shouldn't be a blocker
    • changes
      • ...

Q&A / other

  • wayvnc PR #26381
    • Mikael will probably talk about RDP stuff in Open OnDemand community cal
  • new release of libxsmm (2.0.0)
  • trouble with Triton relying on $CUDA_HOME being set by CUDA
    • breaks module show of Triton module
    • also caused trouble when Triton was used as dependency of something
      • Cintia will try to reproduce the issue
    • see easyconfigs PR #26403
    • would be better to change framework to make it fall back to a value like __CUDA_HOME_ENV_VAR_NOT_DEFINED__, to avoid use of nil value...
      • should be easy to do in easybuild/tools/module_generator.py
  • using bsdtar instead of 7z?
    • makes sense, see framework PR #5213
    • ideally test is enhanced to verify that the fallback to 7z does not happen when a (fake) bsdtar is available
  • Jörg got in touch with R package maintainers about changed tarballs

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