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Kenneth Hoste edited this page May 12, 2026 · 3 revisions

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Notes on the 293rd EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday 6 May 2026 (15:00 UTC / 17:00 CEST)

Attendees

List of attendees (14):

  • Jorge Delgado Guerrero (University of Luxembourg)
  • Davide Grassano (CECAM)
  • Jasper Grimm (University of York, UK)
  • Alexander Grund (ZIH, Dresden, Germany)
  • Adam Huffman (University of Oxford, UK)
  • Georgios Kafanas (University of Luxembourg)
  • Kurt Lust (UAntwerpen & LUMI User Support Team)
  • 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)
  • Jörg Saßmannshausen (Imperial College London, UK)
  • Ake Sandgren (Umeå University, Sweden)
  • Cintia Willemyns (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)

Agenda

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

Recent developments

  • latest EasyBuild release: EasyBuild v5.3.0 (10 April 2026)
  • next (stable) EasyBuild release: v5.3.1 (?)
    • ETA: end of May'26?
  • ETA for EasyBuild 6.0: spring 2027

News

Merge sprints

  • 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  • at some point a sprint to revise & close outdated open issues across different EasyBuild repos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
      • * avoid excessive creating of EasyConfig instances when copies are created (PR #5166)
      • * close stdout/stderr handles in run_shell_cmd and test teardown + remove duplication in toy_build tests (PR #5050)
    • enhancements
      • * make EasyBuild plugin-able through entrypoints (PR #4918)
      • * make sure that test commands used in test_cases step are executable (PR #5118)
      • * Only make use of graphviz to generate dependency graphs instead of pygraph (PR #5128)
      • * add (experimental) support for installing with bwrap (PR #5130)
    • changes
      • ...
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • CI/test suite
      • add test to check how many EasyConfig instances are created when parsing a bunch of easyconfigs (PR #5168)
    • other
      • sync with main + bump version to 5.3.1dev (PR #5172)
      • * release EasyBuild v5.3.0 (PR #5170)
      • * prepare release notes for EasyBuild v5.3.0 + bump version to 5.3.0 (PR #5163)

  • easyblocks (merged PRs)

    • bug fixes
      • fix location of object_storage for Dataset easyblock (PR #4128)
        • fixes: dataset easyblock starts post_processing_step in the wrong directory (issue #4127)
      • * 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
      • Adapt sanity checks for AMD ROCm (PR #4119)
      • * add mapping to LAMMPS easyblock for 9.0a, 10.0f and 12.0f CUDA compute capabilities (PR #4105)
      • * 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)
      • * 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...
    • updates
      • sync with main + bump version to 5.3.1dev (PR #4110)
      • * release EasyBuild v5.3.0 (PR #4108)
      • * update jaxlib easyblock to support LLVM as alternative to Clang for CUDA builds (PR #4101)
    • changes
      • ...
    • new
      • add custom easyblock to build & install ROCm components (PR #3861)
        • see PR for ROCm 6.4.1 easyconfigs: PR #25576
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • CI
      • ...

  • easyconfigs (merged PRs)

    • 88 easyconfig PRs were merged since last conf call
    • bug fixes/reports
      • Add BUILD_LLVM_DYLIB configopts to ROCm-LLVM (PR #25873)
      • Fix HIP hardcoded paths (PR #25846)
        • Fixes: Force hipBLASLt to use easybuild LLVM (issue #25845)
      • disable opal_lifo test for RISC-V in OpenMPI 5.0.8 (PR #25838)
      • {bio}[foss/2025b] GROMACS v2025.4 w/ CUDA 12.9.1 (and apply new patch to 2025.3) (PR #25837)
      • add googletest as build dependency for SPH-EXA (PR #25827)
      • PySide6 6.9.3: add LD_LIBRARY_PATH for PySide6/shiboken6 shared libs (PR #25746)
      • Patch RStudio to correctly set R_HOME when calculating LD_LIBRARY_PATH (PR #25745)
      • add patch to tbb 2022.2.0 easyconfig to avoid the use of -fcf-protection=full for riscv64 (PR #25738)
      • * install graphviz in CI workflow for easyconfigs test suite, required for test_dep_graph (PR #25696)
      • * fix homepage + description in lfoss easyconfigs (PR #25695)
    • enhancements
      • ...
    • (noteworthy) new software
    • noteworthy software updates
      • {bio}[foss/2025b] GROMACS v2025.4 (PR #24956)
      • {phys}[foss/2025a] Siesta v5.4.2 (PR #25818)
    • cleanup
      • ...
    • changes
      • Use Julia wrapper/don't set JULIA_DEPOT_PATH in multi-arch (PR #25836)

Open (active) PRs

  • blog/docs (open PRs + issues)

    • LSP for easyconfigs (WIP) (PR #16)
      • Language Server Protocol
    • Blog post on slurm job builds (PR #14)
    • Add documentation for generating exts_list for a JuliaBundle (PR #377)
    • document EasyBuild governance (PR #376)

  • framework (open PRs + issues)

    • bugs
      • Fix non-interactive cmd.sh (PR #5187)
      • Fix fake_module dependencies for ExtensionsEasyblock with --sanity-check-only (PR #5182)
        • Alexander has some comments, w.r.t. potential overlap with PR #5185, see discussion in PR.
      • Fix duplicate counting of progress in obtain_file (PR #5174)
      • Fix slow dep_graph when only generating source .dot files (PR #5171)
      • Use obtain_file to get file for test_cases_step (PR #5162)
    • enhancements
      • Remove redundant work in sanity check of extensions (PR #5185)
      • Do not duplicate sanity checks in each extension (PR #5184)
      • Allow overwriting the CUDA sanity check CLI arguments in an EasyConfig (PR #5189)
      • format extension names in module files with exts_formatter function (PR #5186)
      • Add options --include-job-backends and --avail-job-backends (PR #5178)
      • Improved Slurm backend for job submission (PR #5177)
      • Allow using ec.dependency_names inside parse_hook (PR #5176)
      • Improve --bwrap to work with r/o filesystems (overlayfs) and --subdir-{modules,software} (PR #5173)
      • Add customizable Themes and Highlighters for rich colors in print_msg (PR #5169)
      • 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
      • 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
      • Use assert(Not)Regex instead of assertTrue or assertFalse in tests (PR #5188)
      • Fix C&P error in test_toy_cuda_sanity_check and simplify (PR #5183)
      • remove hound (PR #5175)

  • easyblocks (open PRs + issues)

    • bug fixes/reports
      • Fix for running --sanity-check-only for a JuliaBundle (PR #4122)
      • call _test_step instead of test_step in Bundle easyblock (PR #4112)
    • enhancements
      • Add CUDNN_HOME as an extra variable (PR #4130)
      • Add PTX code for (highest) CUDA compute capability in PyTorch & torchvision (PR #4129)
      • Adapt easyblocks for HIP (draft PR #4128)
      • add exts_formatter param to allow formatting extension names in module files (PR #4125)
      • JuliaPackage: Allow running tests in a dedicated test_step (PR #4124)
      • Add functions to generate exts_list for a JuliaBundle starting from a Manifest.toml (PR #4121)
      • Configuremake config.guess update and support for multiple source urls (PR #4118)
      • add support for Pnetcdf and PIO to ESMF (PR #4117)
      • Support GPU aware MPI for the NVHPC toolchain in QuantumESPRESSO (PR #4116)
      • enable SVE for FFTW >= 3.3.11 (draft PR #4115)
      • enable 'runtest' and 'test_cmd' customization in MesonNinja easyblock (PR #4111)
      • print warning for mismatched python package names or versions (PR #4109)
      • 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)
    • updates
      • ...
    • changes
      • ...
    • code cleanup
      • ...
    • new easyblocks
      • adding the gcc buildenv easyblock (PR #4120)
      • custom easyblock for ESPResSo (PR #4066)
      • add custom easyblock for DeepSpeed (PR #4082)

  • easyconfigs (open PRs + issues)

    • bug fixes/reports
      • Add missing depencies to jupyter-resource-usage (PR #25801)
      • Remove Dyninst dependency in Extrae for RISCV (PR #25798)
      • Checksum fix for msigdbr in R-bundle-Bioconductor-3.22-foss-2025a-R-4.5.1 (PR #25796)
      • Ignore warning about avx10.1 when configuring CMake (PR #25731)
      • Add graniterapids support to OpenBLAS-0.3.27 (PR #25730)
      • re-enable test_dep_graph (draft PR #25700)
    • enhancements
      • ...
    • (noteworthy) new software
    • software updates
      • PyTorch 2.9.1 w/ CUDA (multiple toolchains)
        • PyTorch performance benchmarking results by Alex: issue #931
    • changes
      • ...

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:
    • included in upcoming EasyBuild 5.3.0!
    • foss/2026.1 component versions (all latest release)
      • GCC 15.2
      • FlexiBLAS 3.5.0 + OpenBLAS 0.3.32 + BLIS 2.0
      • OpenMPI 5.0.10 + UCX 1.20.0 + libfabric 2.5.0 + PMIx 6.1.0
      • FFTW 3.3.10
    • 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
      • needed to fix use of -march=native on Arm with LLVM, using -mcpu=native instead
  • For newer toolchains: GCC 16.1 has been released, GCC 15.3 planned for June 12th
  • probably worth waiting for CUDA 13.3
    • to avoid regression with C++20 in older CUDA 13.x. But we are not sure which regressions, maybe Jan Reuter knows? Edit: see here, via this issue.

Q&A / other

  • Davide: Julia: problem with JULIA_DEPOT_PATH/LOAD_PATH with current easyblock, see here, in discussion with Alex Domingo.
  • Mikael: we should review some older blog PRs, and also, who can merge blogs?

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