PETSc Debian Package Current Status

I have also removed the latest stable backports from the archive linked above; you can find them instead in my aptable archive. Eventually I will do this for the latest unstable packages as well.

BREAKING NEWS: Anthony Towns has okayed upload of PETSc 2.1.3 into woody, so we won't have to release obsolete 2.1.1 (which is broken on IA-64 and HPPA)! August 4, 2002: Woody released with 2.1.3-1.woody.1. Very cool.

This page documents my effort to package the PETSc software suite for the Debian operating system.  PETSc is a scalable framework for scientific computations on parallel processing machines or clusters, currently focused on solving systems of partial differential equations.  The upstream authors are at Argonne National Labs.

I'm also working on a 3-D viewer library, see the illuminator page.

Package description:

Questions/issues:

• On PPC, some of the tests fail (bug 91322). I'll have to debug this at some point, and maybe try a newer compiler.
• The linux_alpha_dec PETSC_ARCH doesn't currently build properly.  This will get fixed soon.  Like, when the fstat bug is resolved in the Q Fortran compilers... UPDATE: as of 2.1.1.30-1, this works with static libs (shlibs disabled), though it is likely broken in 2.1.3-1, because linking C executables with fortran shlibs doesn't seem to work.
• It would be nice to have pre-compiled mpich and lam versions available (see bug 189327). But the archive bloat would be pretty substantial (even with just mpich, the archive has 595 MiB of PETSc packages!), and it's easy to build from source using either one.
• Need to somehow get PETSC_SYS_LIB and PESC_MPI_LIB from $(PETSC_DIR)/bmake/$(PETSC_ARCH)/variables and packages into petsc.m4 file.

To do (in roughly decreasing order of priority):

• Make a C++ class library in a thin wrapper (header files) and contribute upstream, along with a test or two. (Soon obsolete because PETSc 3 will use SIDL)
• (Long-term) Think about how to incorporate the complex libs into this framework (possibly as static libs only?). UPDATE: these will now only bulid with the C++ std::complex class, so we'll have to make the C++ libs available in order to make this work.
• (Long-term) Patch the configure.in to make it work and send the patch upstream. Using this would make the patch-debian file somewhat smaller and would get rid of some of the ugliness in rules' install targets, and would be easier to reconcile with future upgrades. UPDATE: the system now reportedly works, but the Debian packaging still doesn't use it; I'll test and adjust as necessary when I find the time. UPDATE: with version 2.1.5, upstream switched to a python version of configure, which is likely to not work right with anything I try. I'll leave it as-is until 3.0 is released.
• (Long-term) Make an unstructured mesh class with ParMETIS distribution and 3-D viewing, and contribute it upstream. UPDATE: PETSc 2.1.1 seems to already have such a class, at least for 2-D triangular meshes; it was removed for 2.2.x to build into the 3.x series, and then merged back into 2.3.1 (not yet released).

• Switch to using shared libraries, including shared libmpe when Junichi closes bug 143192, and libg2c when my (forthcoming) wishlist bug for that is closed. I've already started this with 2.1.3-3, and will rebuild and upload when 143192 is closed. UPDATE 2002/9/7: it seems g77 3.1 and 3.2 have shared libg2c, 3.2 even splits it out into a separate package! So in unstable, I've moved to gcc/g77/g++-3.2 as of 2.1.3-3, and it seems to work, though it will be broken on HPPA and IA-64 until 143192 is closed. DONE in 2.1.3-3, actually works in 2.1.3-7.
• Migrate to the Doogie Build System or something like it so I can cleanly separate various patches made to the various pieces of PETSc, from upstream patches to my own C++ header patches, bmake files, etc. DONE in 2.1.3-2.
• Add a petsc.m4 to /usr/share/aclocal. DONE in 2.1.3-3, actually works in 2.1.3-4.
• If bug #69864 is approved (proposed Debian policy amendment), then change /usr/share/doc/petsc2.0.29-examples/examples to src. UPDATE: this policy amendment has not passed, but the package change was made a long time ago: the -examples package was eliminated and the examples tree tarball added to the -doc package.
• Switch back from gcc-3.2 to gcc so dependencies like Illuminator will build again. DONE in 2.1.3-8.
• On ARM, parts of libpetscmat do not compile successfully due to an internal compiler error in gcc. RESOLVED with gcc-3.3.
• Make PETSc link to the new hypre package (first uploaded 2003/10/2) and (Par)METIS package (first uploaded 2003/3/27). Note: because the licenses make hypre and *METIS non-free, this would split the PETSc package into free and contrib versions, which I will not upload because of archive bloat (with stable, testing and unstable free mpich versions alone, it takes nearly 595 MiB!). But it would be good to have a compile-time option to build hypre- and parmetis-linked PETSc, as there is for lam. DONE in 2.2.0-2.