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Using and installing scaLAPACKe¤

To use or install scaLAPACKe, you'll need two key components: an MPI library implementation and a scaLAPACK implementation.

Popular MPI options include:

For scaLAPACK, consider the following:

Check your package manager or module system, as some of these libraries might already be available on your system.

Using the files in your project¤

To use scaLAPACKe in your project, follow these steps:

  1. Download the latest release.
  2. Extract the contents of the src/ and include/ directories to a suitable location within your project.

Make sure to:

  • Add the extracted files to your build system (e.g., Makefile, CMake).
  • Use mpicc (or an equivalent MPI compiler wrapper) to compile your project.
  • Link against the scaLAPACK library of your choice.
  • If using 64-bit integers (ILP64), use -DLAPACK_ILP64 in your compiler options. Learn more about ILP64 here.

If you use Meson in your project, this projects provide a ready-to-go archive and a corresponding wrap files. Just grab the wrap file corresponding to the version you want to use ...

# in your super project root folder

# create a `subprojects` folder if it does not exists yet
mkdir -p subprojects

# download wrap file
wget https://github.com/pierre-24/scalapacke/releases/download/v0.3.0/scalapacke_v0.3.0.wrap -O subprojects/scalapacke.wrap

... and add something like this in your meson.build:

scalapacke_dep = cc.find_library('scalapacke', required: false)
if not scalapacke_dep.found()
  scalapacke_proj = subproject('scalapacke', default_options: ['la_backend=scalapack'])
  scalapacke_dep = scalapacke_proj.get_variable('scalapacke_dep')
endif
project_dep += scalapacke_dep

Note: Don't forget to set CC=mpicc (or others) before any meson command, otherwise it will not use MPI.

You can configure the project by adjusting the options found in the meson_options.txt file. Here's a quick overview:

  • la_backend: Select the linear algebra backend, either by specifying a pkg-config file or setting it to custom.
  • mkl_mpi: Choose the MPI implementation to use (relevant only for MKL).
  • la_libraries: Manually specify a list of libraries (relevant only if la_backend=custom).
  • ilp64: Enable 64-bit integers.

To successfully build the project, you must either provide a value for la_backend or set la_backend=custom and define la_libraries.

Detailed options' description¤

The simplest way to configure scaLAPACKe is by setting la_backend to a valid pkg-config file, if supported by your OS. To find available options, run:

pkg-config --list-all | grep scalapack

For example, on Ubuntu 24.04, something like default_options: ['la_backend=scalapack-openmpi'] should be used. Note that this generally force the choice of an MPI implementation as well.

This generally also selects an MPI implementation.

If you're using oneMKL, Intel provides several pkg-config files, as detailed here. However, these files don't include scaLAPACK, so our meson.build script requires an additional mkl_mpi option, which can be set to openmpi or intelmpi (equivalent to mpich). An example configuration might be: default_options: ['la_backend=mkl-static-lp64-seq', 'mkl_mpi=openmpi'].

For custom or non-standard libraries (like AOCL) without a pkg-config file, set la_backend=custom and specify the libraries using la_libraries=lib1,lib2,.... Meson will attempt to locate them. Ensure that your LIBRARY_PATH is correctly set by exporting it if necessary: 

export LIBRARY_PATH=$LIBRARY_PATH:/path/to/your/library/

If you want to use 64-bits integers (if and only if your scaLAPACK implementation supports it), add ilp64=true.

Tested builds¤

In our test suite, we cover the following test cases:

Linear algebra library MPI flavor Can use ILP64?
Netlib scaLAPACK OpenMPI No (ILP64 version not available as a Ubuntu package)
MKL scaLAPACK OpenMPI or Intel MPI Yes (la_backend=mkl-static-ilp64-seq) and no (la_backend=mkl-static-lp64-seq)
AOCL (with la_backend=custom and la_libraires=scalapack) OpenMPI No (and probably yes, using $AOCLROOT/set_aocl_interface_symlink.sh ilp64, but unstable, see #3)

Feel free to suggest modifications to this table with your discoveries :)

With meson, in your system¤

If you want to install the library in your system, then:

# clone this repository
git clone https://github.com/pierre-24/scalapacke.git
cd scalapacke

# setup (don't forget to set the different options)
export CC=mpicc
meson setup _build  # /!\ see below

# compile
meson compile -C _build

# (optional) tests
meson configure _build -Dtests=true -Dtests_nprocs=2
meson test -C _build

# install
meson configure _build --prefix=$HOME/.local
meson install -C _build

Note that any of the option discussed in the previous section should be added to the meson setup line, prefixed by -D, e.g., -Dla_backend=scalapack-openmpi, -Dilp64=true, etc.