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Conference call notes 20260923

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Alex Domingo edited this page Sep 23, 2026 · 1 revision

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Notes on the 302st EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday 23 Sept 2026 (15:00 UTC / 17:00 CEST)

Attendees

List of attendees (10):

  • Alex Domingo (VUB)
  • Davide Grassano (CECAM)
  • Jorge Delgado Guerrero (University of Luxembourg)
  • Kurt Lust (UAntwerpen)
  • Jörg Saßmannshausen (Imperial College London, UK)
  • Cintia Willemyns (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)
  • Georgios Kafanas (University of Luxembourg)
  • Sébastien Moretti (SIB, Switzerland)
  • Vladislav Mogilev
  • Leonardo Honfi (Wageningen University)

Agenda

  • overview of recent developments
  • outlook to next release
  • Q&A

Recent developments

  • latest EasyBuild release: EasyBuild v5.4.0 (9 August 2026)
  • next (stable) EasyBuild release (5.4.1): late Sept'26
  • ETA for EasyBuild 6.0: spring 2027

News

  • ...

Merge sprints

  • future easyconfigs merge sprints planned:
    • Mon 19 Oct 2026
    • Mon 21 Dec 2026
    • Mon 15 Feb 2027
    • Mon 19 Apr 2027
    • Mon 21 Jun 2027
    • Mon 16 Aug 2027
  • aiming for semi-fixed schedule every other month: 3rd Monday in even months (with exceptions)
  • at some point a sprint to revise & close outdated open issues across different EasyBuild repos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 (recently merged PRs)

    • ...

  • framework (recently merged PRs)

    • bug fixes
      • Bring back async_cmd_check to check for parallel extension install completion and fix dry-run mode with parallel extensions (PR #5223)
      • fix download_file to not give up prematurely when HTTP status between between 400 and 499 is obtained, so fallback URLs (like ftp.gnu.org for ftpmirror.gnu.org) are being used (PR #5284)
      • change RPATH wrapper to still add -rpath options when -v option is used in linker command (PR #5282)
    • enhancements
      • add --bwrap-options option (PR #5281)
      • Add support for specifying dependencies required to obtain source files via source_deps easyconfig parameter (PR #5273)
    • changes
      • remove fallback to using requests in download_file (PR #5289)
    • code cleanup
      • Cleanup duplication in handle_include_easyblocks_from (PR #5194)
    • CI/test suite
      • Use assert(Not)Regex instead of assertTrue or assertFalse in tests (PR #5240)
      • Split assert_multi_regex into assertMultiRegex & assertNotMultiRegex (PR #5285)
    • other
      • ...

  • easyblocks (recently merged PRs)

    • bug fixes
      • set NVCC_WRAPPER_DEFAULT_COMPILER in kokkos easyblock to avoid picking up old rpath wrapper (PR #4133)
      • Drop outdated 2to3 requirement from mamba easyblock (PR #4230)
      • fixes for LAMMPS easyblock: set $LD_PRELOAD when crosscompiling NVIDIA GPU build on CPU-only system + disable Arm NEON to work around failing build on Arm when using CUDA < 13.2 (PR #4222)
      • Correct buildopts propagation across iterations for OpenBLAS (PR #4213)
      • Limit $OMP_NUM_THREADS for PyTorch tests to avoid oversubscribing available cores (PR #4217)
    • enhancements
      • enhance RPackage easyblock to avoid polluting $HOME when installing R packages (PR #3911)
    • updates
      • Update sepp easyblock for sepp 4.5.6+ (PR #4212)
    • changes
      • ...
    • new
      • ...
    • code cleanup
      • flesh out logic to determine location to binutils commands into a standalone function det_binutils_bin_path in TensorFlow easyblock, and leverage it from jaxlib easyblock (PR #3486)
    • CI/test suite
      • ...

  • easyconfigs (recently merged PRs)

Open (active) PRs

  • blog/docs (recently active open PRs + issues)

    • ...

  • framework (recently active open PRs + issues)

    • bugs
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • also bwrap module installpath (PR #5214)
        • @Sam: updates?
      • Add extension_name easyconfig parameter, to specify name of extension to use in generated module file (PR #5259)
      • Add factory method make_deprecated_dict_class for creating a dict with deprecated/replaced keys (PR #5260)
      • Allow pathlib.Path for filetools.normalize_path (PR #5271)
    • code cleanup
      • Cleanup use of dicts, e.g. use of .keys() (PR #5165)
    • changes
      • Raise an error if toolchain.dependencies is accessed before prepare_step (PR #5234)
      • Rename modulename to load_name for Extensions and allow as root-parameter (PR #5257)
      • Replace raw dict by CategorizedPaths NamedTuple(-like) (PR #5269)
    • CI/test suite

  • easyblocks (recently active open PRs + issues)

    • bug fixes/reports
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • don't remove test installdir when --disable-cleanup-tmpdir is set for PythonPackage easyblock (PR #4208)
      • document extra_option modulename of PythonPackage (PR #4210)
      • enhance GROMACS easyblock to allow building with CP2K QM/MM support (PR #4211)
      • Handle CCache in PyTorch easyblock + consistency fixes (PR #4216)
    • updates
      • ...
    • changes
      • ...
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • new easyblocks
      • add custom easyblock for PsN (PR #4137)
      • Add new generic EasyBlock HuggingFaceDataset (PR #4141)
      • Add custom easyblock for PMIx (PR #4214)
    • CI/test suite
      • Add test for correct import of other easyblocks (PR #4182)

  • easyconfigs (recently active open PRs + issues)

    • over ~710 open easyconfig PRs currently
    • bug fixes/reports
      • Add OpenSSL explicitly to R-bundle-CRAN to avoid mixing with system libs (PR #26676)
    • enhancements
      • ...
    • (noteworthy) new software
      • ...
    • software updates
      • ...
    • changes
      • enabling symbol versioning in cURL easyconfigs (issue #26684)
    • CI/test suite
      • ...

Q&A / other

  • Jorg: VASP 6.6.0 has a bug. Pull request open for 6.6.1 on 2026.1 https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/26954

    • still depends on Wannier90 3.1.0, although v4 is already available
    • upcoming versions of VASP will be able to use Wannier90 v4

  • Alex: In that case we can have both v3.1 and v4.0 of Wannier90 in 2026.1. We just need to add an exception to the test suit to allow that duplicity.

  • Jorg: new version of VASP provides build files for CMake. You need to download the CMakeLists.txt from the wild (Provided by VASP developers). Seems to be easier to enable/disable features on the build.

  • Mikael: also improves dependency tracking of dependencies of the build

  • Alex: it's a bit annoying that those CMakeLists are not part of the sources, but if they can be downloaded publicly is not a big trouble. Those can be added as second sources.

  • Jorg: is there any news on the EasyBuild user meeting?

  • Alex: I have no information, we need to ask Kenneth for updates.

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