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How to use spack

Spack is a package manager available with user permission.

References:

List available packages​

The spack list and spack info comannd​

list available packages by spack list （It takes time to list only the first time when it is executed.）

$ spack list | wc
   6348    6348   68228

You can list the detailes of available packages using spack info.

$ spack info gcc
AutotoolsPackage:   gcc

Description:
    The GNU Compiler Collection includes front ends for C, C++, Objective-C,
    Fortran, Ada, and Go, as well as libraries for these languages.

Homepage: https://gcc.gnu.org

Preferred version:  
    11.2.0    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-11.2.0/gcc-11.2.0.tar.xz

Safe versions:  
    master    [git] git://gcc.gnu.org/git/gcc.git on branch master
    11.2.0    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-11.2.0/gcc-11.2.0.tar.xz
    11.1.0    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-11.1.0/gcc-11.1.0.tar.xz
    10.3.0    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-10.3.0/gcc-10.3.0.tar.xz
    10.2.0    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-10.2.0/gcc-10.2.0.tar.xz
    10.1.0    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-10.1.0/gcc-10.1.0.tar.xz
    9.4.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-9.4.0/gcc-9.4.0.tar.xz
    9.3.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-9.3.0/gcc-9.3.0.tar.xz
    9.2.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-9.2.0/gcc-9.2.0.tar.xz
    9.1.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-9.1.0/gcc-9.1.0.tar.xz
    8.5.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-8.5.0/gcc-8.5.0.tar.xz
    8.4.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-8.4.0/gcc-8.4.0.tar.xz
    8.3.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-8.3.0/gcc-8.3.0.tar.xz
    8.2.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-8.2.0/gcc-8.2.0.tar.xz
    8.1.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-8.1.0/gcc-8.1.0.tar.xz
    7.5.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-7.5.0/gcc-7.5.0.tar.xz
    7.4.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-7.4.0/gcc-7.4.0.tar.xz
    7.3.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-7.3.0/gcc-7.3.0.tar.xz
    7.2.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-7.2.0/gcc-7.2.0.tar.xz
    7.1.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-7.1.0/gcc-7.1.0.tar.bz2
    6.5.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-6.5.0/gcc-6.5.0.tar.bz2
    6.4.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-6.4.0/gcc-6.4.0.tar.bz2
    6.3.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-6.3.0/gcc-6.3.0.tar.bz2
    6.2.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-6.2.0/gcc-6.2.0.tar.bz2
    6.1.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-6.1.0/gcc-6.1.0.tar.bz2
    5.5.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-5.5.0/gcc-5.5.0.tar.bz2
    5.4.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-5.4.0/gcc-5.4.0.tar.bz2
    5.3.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-5.3.0/gcc-5.3.0.tar.bz2
    5.2.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-5.2.0/gcc-5.2.0.tar.bz2
    5.1.0     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-5.1.0/gcc-5.1.0.tar.bz2
    4.9.4     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-4.9.4/gcc-4.9.4.tar.bz2
    4.9.3     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-4.9.3/gcc-4.9.3.tar.bz2
    4.9.2     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-4.9.2/gcc-4.9.2.tar.bz2
    4.9.1     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-4.9.1/gcc-4.9.1.tar.bz2
    4.8.5     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-4.8.5/gcc-4.8.5.tar.bz2
    4.8.4     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-4.8.4/gcc-4.8.4.tar.bz2
    4.7.4     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-4.7.4/gcc-4.7.4.tar.bz2
    4.6.4     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-4.6.4/gcc-4.6.4.tar.bz2
    4.5.4     https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-4.5.4/gcc-4.5.4.tar.bz2

Deprecated versions:  
    None

Variants:
    Name [Default]               When    Allowed values          Description
    =========================    ====    ====================    ===================================================

    binutils [off]               --      on, off                 Build via binutils
    bootstrap [on]               --      on, off                 Enable 3-stage bootstrap
    graphite [off]               --      on, off                 Enable Graphite loop optimizations (requires ISL)
    languages [c,c++,fortran]    --      ada, brig, c, c++,      Compilers and runtime libraries to build
                                         fortran, go, java,      
                                         jit, lto, objc,         
                                         obj-c++                 
    nvptx [off]                  --      on, off                 Target nvptx offloading to NVIDIA GPUs
    piclibs [off]                --      on, off                 Build PIC versions of libgfortran.a and libstdc++.a
    strip [off]                  --      on, off                 Strip executables to reduce installation size

Build Dependencies:
    autoconf  automake  binutils  cuda  diffutils  flex  gawk  gmp  gnat  gnuconfig  iconv  isl  libtool  m4  mpc  mpfr  texinfo  zip  zlib  zstd

Link Dependencies:
    binutils  cuda  gmp  gnat  iconv  isl  mpc  mpfr  zlib  zstd

Run Dependencies:
    binutils

the "Spack packages" website​

On the "Spack packages" website, you can search for available packages in spack.

Installing spack packages

Install packages by spack install

Uninstall packages by spack unintall

The simplest example​

spack install tree

Specify version​

Install a specified version with optional arguments

spack install -j 4 --fail-fast gcc@8.5.0
  • --fail-fast : stop all builds if any build fails
  • -j : explicitly set number of parallel jobs

Show help for other commands using spack help install.

Specify compile conditions for installation​

You can specify the compile conditions for the installation by using Variants items listed detailed information on a particular package spack info command.

spack install -j 4 --fail-fast gcc@8.5.0 binutils=True

Make installed packages available​

Make installed packages available by spack load command.

Unload by spack unload command.

You can switch between multiple versions by spack load command.

spack load gcc@8.5.0

Solution to install multiple same packages​

For example, if Emacs@27.2 has already been installed on Spack, the following error will occur when Spack Load Emacs is executed in the same condition, etc. You may.

For example, if Emacs@27.2 has already been installed with spack, but the same Emacs@27.2 is installed again under the same conditions, you may receive the following error when executing spack load emacs.

==> Error: emacs matches multiple packages.  Matching packages:    
xi4oeab emacs@27.2%gcc@8.5.0 arch=linux-centos7-zen    
7ck36ru emacs@27.2%gcc@8.5.0 arch=linux-centos7-zen  

Use a more specific spec.

If you receive such an error, one of them is not needed and should be removed.

To uninstall, execute the following command with the hash value above.

spack uninstall /7ck36ru
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