Spack

Modeling and simulation environments are very heterogeneous. Spack therefore supports many different production environments:

• 7 different compilers: Intel, GCC, Clang, PGI, …

• Resolving dependencies

• Resolving different versions of dependencies

See also

• Docs

• Tutorial

• Spack Encyclopedia

• GitHub

Previous systems

They usually do not offer any support for combinatorial versioning.

• Traditional binary package managers like RPM, yum, APT, yast, etc.

  • are designed to manage a single software stack

  • install one version of a package

  • usually problem-free upgrades to a stable, well-tested stack

• Port systems

  • BSD Ports, portage, NixOS, Macports, Homebrew, etc.

  • mostly little support for builds that are parameterised by compilers or dependent versions

• Virtual machines and Linux containers

  • Containers allow the creation of different environments for different applications

  • However, they do not solve the build problem for the image

  • Performance, security and upgrades become very complex with many different builds.