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Kenneth Hoste edited this page Apr 8, 2026 · 1 revision

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Notes on the 292nd EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday 8 April 2026 (15:00 UTC / 17:00 CEST)

Attendees

List of attendees (16):

  • Jasper Grimm (University of York, UK)
  • Alexander Grund (ZIH, Dresden, Germany)
  • Adam Huffman (University of Oxford, UK)
  • Jorge Delgado Guerrero (University of Luxembourg)
  • Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent)
  • Georgios Kafanas (University of Luxembourg)
  • Sam Moors (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)
  • Sébastien Moretti (SIB, Switzerland)
  • Mikael Öhman (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)
  • Bart Oldeman (McGill, Calcul Quebec, Digital Research Alliance Canada)
  • Jurij Pečar (EMBL, Germany)
  • Jörg Saßmannshausen (Imperial College London, UK)
  • Roberto Scipioni (Red Oak Consulting)
  • Thomas Hayward-Schneider (Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), Germany)
  • Louwrens Van Dellen (ITER)
  • Alain van Hoof (TU Eindhoven, Netherlands)

Agenda

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

Recent developments

News

  • 11th EasyBuild User Meeting (EUM'26): 21-23 April 2026 @ Portugal, see https://easybuild.io/eum26
    • 100% in-person seats taken (~40)
    • registration for online attendance still possible (until Fri 17 April 23:59 CEST)
    • travel + hotels suggestions on website
    • program complete (except for 1 talk slot)
  • 9th EasyBuild User Survey
    • now closed
    • exactly 100 responses
    • results are being processed, will be made available via https://docs.easybuild.io/user-survey/ soon-ish...
    • highlights will be covered during "State of the Union" talk at EUM'26

Merge sprints

  • merge sprint ongoing today (Wed 8 Apr 2026)
  • future easyconfigs merge sprints planned:
    • Mon 15 Jun 2026
    • Mon 17 Aug 2026
    • Mon 19 Oct 2026
    • Mon 21 Dec 2026
    • Mon 15 Feb 2026
    • 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  • at some point a sprint to revise & close outdated open issues across different EasyBuild repos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)

    • ...

  • framework (merged PRs)

    • bug fixes
      • Make sure cached easyconfigs don't get modifed (PR #4818)
      • Fix check_checksums when using templates, patch-dicts or checksums.json (PR #5021)
      • switch native flag from -march=native to -mcpu=native for LLVM compilers on Arm 64-bit (aarch64) (PR #5139)
      • use fallback mechanism that relies on $USER or $LOGNAME when determining username via pwd.getpwuid fails (PR #5151)
      • be more careful when parsing output produced by rocm-smi command (+ add tests for get_gpu_info function) (PR #5155)
      • raise error if 'filename' is missing in source dict (PR #5152, PR #5156)
      • fix test_github_merge_pr by using more recent easyblocks PR (PR #5160)
      • enhance get_cuda_object_dump_raw to not run cuobjdump on shell scripts to determine CUDA architecture (PR #5161)
    • enhancements
      • Add return_conflicts option to check_conflicts function and enhance tests (PR #5000)
      • Added command line parameter --fetch-all (PR #5014)
      • Add rich colors to print_msg (PR #5125, PR #5149)
    • changes
      • ...
    • code cleanup
      • remove deprecated 2-element list/tuple for specifying sources (PR #5153)
    • CI/test suite
      • close stdout/stderr handles in run_shell_cmd and test teardown + remove duplication in toy_build tests (PR #5050)
      • Replace assertTrue/assertFalse with assertRegex in easyblock test (PR #5137)
    • other
      • ...

  • easyblocks (merged PRs)

    • bug fixes
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • use clean_dir instead of remove_dir on installation directory in custom easyblock for: Amber + AmberTools (PR #3935), GATE (PR #3932), Go (PR #3931), Molpro (PR #3930, Tkinter (PR #3929) + Tarball generic easyblock (PR #3926)
      • enhance PythonPackage and PythonBundle easyblocks to add support to install dummy Python packages (PR #4063)
      • enhance custom easyblocks for SCOTCH & MUMPS to add lfoss toolchain support (PR #4069)
      • Limit number of parallel compile jobs in PyTorch tests by setting $MAX_JOBS + add support for using Arm Compute Library (ACL) as dependency (PR #4096)
      • be more patient when running CPLEX interactive installer (PR #4103)
    • updates
      • update CPLEX easyblock for CPLEX v22.1.2 (which doesn't include Python bindings anymore) (PR #3909)
    • changes
      • ...
    • new
      • ...
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • CI
      • ...

  • easyconfigs (merged PRs)

    • ~90 easyconfig PRs were merged since last conf call
    • bug fixes/reports
      • add patch to fix using wrong OpenMP library in PyTorch 2.7.1 (PR #25544)
      • avoid requiring glibc-static for BEDOPS 2.4.41 by removing -static flag from Makefiles (PR #25686)
      • fix reported version for kiwisolver 1.4.5 extension in matplotlib easyconfigs (PR #25685)
    • enhancements
      • ...
    • (noteworthy) new software
      • ...
    • noteworthy software updates
    • cleanup
      • ...
    • changes
      • ...

Open (active) PRs

  • blog/docs (open PRs + issues)

    • ...

  • framework (open PRs + issues)

    • bugs
      • Use obtain_file to get file for test_cases_step (PR #5162)
    • enhancements
      • Proposed changes to make EasyBuild plugin-able through entrypoints (PR #4918)
        • better alternative to hooks for customizing EasyBuild
      • New experimental eb2 CLI using click (PR #4961)
        • reviewed by KH, needs a bit more work...
        • should be opt-in (via $EB_CLI_CLICK)
        • eb --version is broken with Click-based CLI, should be fixed
      • make sure that test commands used in test_cases step are executable (PR #5118)
      • add support for installing with bwrap (PR #5130)
        • thoroughly reviewed/revised, ready to merge...
      • Add support for non-path variables in module_load_environment (PR #5138)
      • Document where architecture dicts are allowed in easyconfig parameters & fix version templates for removed dependencies (PR #5150)
      • Lift fallback for PyPI package names to obtain_file (PR #5159)
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • changes
      • Sort values for cuda_compute_capabilities templates (PR #5144)
    • CI/test suite
      • ...

  • easyblocks (open PRs + issues)

    • bug fixes/reports
      • include /usr/local Python package directory for system-level Python package installations (PR #4095)
        • fix for issue #4100: invalid command 'bdist_wheel' error when installing SYSTEM Python packages, including EasyBuild on EL10 systems
    • enhancements
      • use clean_dir instead of remove_dir on installation directory in Binary easyblock (PR #3927)
      • verify Python package names and versions with pip list with sanity_check_pip_list parameter (PR #4049)
        • checking of pip list is auto-enabled (only) when --upload-test-report, so check is required to pass for new contributions...
      • enhance custom easyblock for intel-compilers to support sysroot + dynamic linker (PR #4098)
      • enhance JuliaPackage easyblock to avoid writing to $HOME & clean up JuliaBundle (PR #4102)
      • add mapping to LAMMPS easyblock for 9.0a, 10.0f and 12.0f CUDA compute capabilities (PR #4105)
    • updates
      • update jaxlib easyblock to support LLVM as alternative to Clang for CUDA builds (PR #4101)
    • changes
      • ...
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • new easyblocks
      • add custom easyblock to build & install ROCm components (PR #3861)
        • see PR for ROCm 6.4.1 easyconfigs: PR #25576
      • custom easyblock for ESPResSo (PR #4066)
      • add custom easyblock for DeepSpeed (PR #4082)

  • easyconfigs (open PRs + issues)

    • bug fixes/reports
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • ...
    • (noteworthy) new software
      • ...
    • software updates
      • PyTorch 2.9.1 w/ CUDA (multiple toolchains)
        • PyTorch performance benchmarking results by Alex: issue #931
    • changes
      • bump OpenBLAS to v0.3.32 as dependency for FlexiBLAS 3.5.0 w/ GCC 15.2.0 (PR #25603)

Common toolchains

  • {foss/intel/lfoss}/2026.1
    • revised versioning scheme for common toolchains, moving away from <year>{a,b}
      • aiming to be closer to one common toolchain version per year (instead of two)
    • likely to be included with next EasyBuild release...
    • relevant PRs tagged with 2026.1 label
  • 2026.1 toolchain definitions are WIP
    • hopefully to be included in upcoming EasyBuild release...
    • foss/2026.1 component versions (all latest release)
    • intel/2026.01 component versions
      • GCC 15.2
      • intel-compilers 2025.3.2
      • impi 2021.17.2
      • imkl 2025.3.1
    • lfoss/2026.01 component versions
      • like foss/2026.01, but with LLVM 21.1.8
      • need to fix use of -march=native on Arm with LLVM, should use -mcpu=native instead
      • OpenBLAS 0.3.31 is using grace as target, trouble when -march=native is used, which leads to missing some CPU features and trigger build failure; fixed when using -mcpu=native
  • probably worth waiting for CUDA 13.3
    • to avoid regression with C++20 in older CUDA 13.x

Q&A / other

  • Louwrens: interested to help out with getting ITER PRs merged
    • see SimonPinches' PRs
    • join #merge-sprint to discuss PRs
    • set ready-to-review and ready-to-merge labels
    • upload test reports yourself, or ask boegelbot to do so
  • Louwrens: rule about multiple versions in same easyconfigs generation?
    • for ITER, there should be multiple versions of IMAS
      • versionsuffix can be used to define "islands" that depend on different IMAS versions
    • exceptions can be made in easyconfigs test suite, see alt_dep_versions in test/easyconfigs/easyconfigs.py
  • Thomas: support for running EasyBuild on top of Python 3.6?
  • Bart: had to use a triple-quoted string, trouble with resolving of templates
    • can provide more details
    • this should work: 
      name = 'Bart'
foo = f"""
{name} %(version)s
"""
  • Jörg: where to meet on Tue morning for EUM'26?
    • email with practical information will follow, possibly only on Monday before the event starts

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