Installing and configuring Spack

  • download :ref:spack <https://spack.io/> and follow the installation instructions.

  • create a ~/.spack directory if it doesn’t exist yet

  • create a file ~/.spack/packages.yaml if it doesn’t exist yet. There you can add any package specifications you want. Like which versions to install, or which packages not to install, but use the package inside your normal system (see git for example in the file below). My (Loic’s) file looks like this:

packages:
    all:
        providers:
            mpi: [mpich, openmpi]

    git:
        paths:
            git@2.17.1: /usr/bin/git/

    perl:
        paths:
            perl@5.26.1: /usr/

    paraview:
        variants: +qt

    qt:
        variants: +opengl+gtk

    cairo:
        variants: +X

    gtkplus:
        variants: +X

    pango:
        variants: +X

    openmpi:
        variants: +cuda+thread_multiple

    hwloc:
        variants: +cuda

    hdf5:
        variants: +cxx+fortran+hl+szip+threadsafe

    mesa:
        variants: +hwrender~llvm

    llvm:
        variants: +python+link_dylib

    binutils:
        variants: +plugins

    mpich:
        variants: +verbs

    python:
        paths:
            python+optimizations+tk@3.7.0%gcc@8.2.0: /usr/python/python3.7.0
            python+tk+ucs4@2.7.15%gcc@8.2.0: /usr/python/python2.7.15
        buildable: False

  • Add the spack executable to your $PATH variable (assuming you’re using bash): Add the following lines to your ~/.bashrc file:

export SPACK_ROOT="/path/to/where/you/installed/spack/"
export PATH="$SPACK_ROOT/bin":"$PATH"

Page last edited 2018-12-06