[SciPy-dev] scipy distutils questions

[Nils Wagner]

Arnd Baecker wrote:
>Good morning alltogether ;-)
>
>thanks to Pearu things look very good now:
>
>- scipy core (0.8.6.1668) installs fine on the Itanium 2
>  and mkl72. All tests pass.
>- full scipy: installs fine.
>
>  scipy.test(10,10):
>
>  ****************************************************************
>  WARNING: clapack module is empty
>  -----------
>  See scipy/INSTALL.txt for troubleshooting.
>  Notes:
>  * If atlas library is not found by scipy/system_info.py,
>    then scipy uses flapack instead of clapack.
>  ****************************************************************
>
>  ****************************************************************
>  WARNING: cblas module is empty
>  -----------
>  See scipy/INSTALL.txt for troubleshooting.
>  Notes:
>  * If atlas library is not found by scipy/system_info.py,
>    then scipy uses fblas instead of cblas.
>  ****************************************************************
>
>======================================================================
>FAIL: check_tandg (scipy.special.basic.test_basic.test_cephes)
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Traceback (most recent call last):
>  File
>"/home/baecker/python2/scipy2/lib/python2.4/site-packages/scipy/special/tests/test_basic.py",
>line 440, in check_tandg
>    assert_equal(cephes.tandg(45),1.0)
>  File
>"/home/baecker/python2//scipy2/lib/python2.4/site-packages/scipy/test/testing.py",
>line 661, in assert_equal
>    assert desired == actual, msg
>AssertionError:
>Items are not equal:
>DESIRED: 1.0
>ACTUAL: 1.0000000000000002
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Ran 1384 tests in 89.783s
>
>  Compared to .... tests on a machine with ATLAS
>  The number of tests (apart from 3 tests from distuils)
>  is the one which I also get on a different machine,
>  so things look very good on this side!
>
>While we are at it:
>- I would also like to test the FFT provided by mkl,
>  as it claims to be faster than fftw3 by a factor 1.5 and more
>  in a couple of cases:
>  http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/perflib/mkl/219662.htm
>
>  For MKL 8.0, there is a fftw interface which might make
>  this possible without too much problems.
>
>- ACML: On an Opteron the following worked with site.cfg
>
>  [atlas]
>  library_dirs = /opt/cluster/acml/2.7.0/lib
>  atlas_libs = acml
>
>  [blas]
>  library_dirs = /opt/cluster/acml/2.7.0/lib
>  blas_libs = acml
>
>  [lapack]
>  library_dirs = /opt/cluster/acml/2.7.0/lib
>
>  Do you also plan a `site.cfg`-less configuration for ACML?
>  (or does this already work?)
>
>- For the SGI ALtix we have one more candidate:
>  scsl -  Scientific Computing Software Library from SGI
>  (http://www.sgi.com/products/software/scsl.html)
>  which provides BLAS/LAPACK, FFT and more...
>
>  I would be surprised, if you had scsl, so I think that one
>  will be our job, right?
>  Some questions: Similarly to mkl we would have to provide
>          'scsl':scsll_info,
>          'lapack_scsl':lapack_scsl_info,
>          'blas_scls':blas_scsl_info,
>  add the corresponding routines accordingly, add a
>      default_scls_dirs
>  and add the corresponding stuff in
>    class lapack_opt_info(system_info):
>  ?
>
>One more general question:
>In the end it might well happen, that ATLAS is faster for
>one set of problems and MKL is faster for another bunch of problems.
>This would mean to have two different installations of scipy around.
>Adding ACML and scsl to the mess leads to 4 installations
>and allowing for different types of FFTs would lead
>to a nice tree of installations ...
>
>Do you think it is feasible to make it possible to
>choose between  different
>(for example) flapack.so from within one scipy installation?
>
>((I am just running a second install for fftw3 and
>see if it is also slow on this machine, but that's
>for a separate thread...))
>
>Many thanks,
>
>Arnd
>
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>  

Arnd,

You might be interested in the following links

http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/resources/software/gotoblasfaq.php
http://bohnsack.com/writing/libgoto-hpl/
http://www.pathscale.com/building_code/gotoblas.html
http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/~kgoto/

Nils