Re: cern software

[Brett Viren <bv@bnl.gov>]

Hi Matt,

Matt Zagrabelny <mzagrabe@d.umn.edu> writes:

> My name is Matt Zagrabelny, I work as a Debian sysadmin for the
> University of Minnesota Duluth. We are looking at setting up a Beowulf
> Cluster for our Physics Department. They are advocating Scientific Linux
> (RedHat derivative), I am advocating Debian.
>
> They need certain CERN software. They have pointed me to the following
> website:
>
> http://lhcb-comp.web.cern.ch/lhcb-comp/Frameworks/

Geant4 and ROOT are (currently unofficially) packaged for Debian.

> They need things like GAUDI. I am wondering if anyone has any experience
> with installing this software (on Debian), if anyone could give any hints, or any
> general advice regarding CERN packages/frameworks/software.

I don't think Gaudi is packaged for Debian.  It uses its own package
manager, CMT (www.cmtsite.org) that builds Gaudi and other LHC
packages and provides environment variable setup.

Given that, there isn't much difference in building CMT controlled
packages on Debian than on SL or other GNU/Linux distributions.

Some packages that I find useful for my Debian cluster:

  diskless   (Debian specific, manage config on worker nodes)
  usepackage (Manage environment for non-Debian packages)
  cexec      (exec commands on worker nodes in parallel)
  distcc     (distributed compilation)

I boot my nodes from the network and their root FS are all NFS
mounted.  Local disk is currently only used for swap space.  This,
plus diskless, makes adding new nodes and upgrading software extremely
easy.

I use torque/maui for the batch system.  These are unfortunately not
available as a Debian package to my knowledge.

Cheers,
-Brett.