On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 8:25 AM Ben Cotton <bcotton(a)redhat.com> wrote:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/FlexiBLAS_as_BLAS/LAPACK_manager
== Summary ==
BLAS/LAPACK packages will be compiled against the FlexiBLAS wrapper
library, which will set OpenBLAS as system-wide default backend, and
at the same time will provide a proper switching mechanism that
currently Fedora lacks.
I like this idea. Comments below.
# '''Fedora lacks a system-wide default'''.
Due to implementation
differences, it is important that all components of a particular
software stack link to the same BLAS/LAPACK implementation. Although
there have been [[Changes/OpenBLAS_as_default_BLAS|efforts]] to
standardize OpenBLAS as a system-wide default, they are incomplete.
# '''Fedora lacks a proper switching mechanism'''. Different
implementations work differently depending on the workload, but also
depending on whether the consumer of this API implements some kind of
parallelization, for instance. Therefore, users may want to choose a
particular implementation that works best for them at run time.
Mechanisms such as update-alternatives and modules have been discussed
in the past, but were considered improper (the former) or faced
technical issues (the former).
I think the latter instance of "the former" should be "the latter".
:-)
# Recompilation of all BLAS/LAPACK-dependent packages linking
against
FlexiBLAS instead of the current implementation they are using (just
changing a BuildRequires line should be sufficient in most cases,
unless a SPEC has something hardcoded somewhere else).
Speaking as maintainer of several packages that use BLAS/LAPACK, I
think the effort required may be a bit more than this paragraph
suggests, but it is worth doing. Thanks for working on this, IƱaki!
--
Jerry James
http://www.jamezone.org/