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How to build PhasicFlow

You can build PhasicFlow for CPU or GPU. You can have a single build or oven multiple builds on a machine. Here you learn how to have a single build of PhasicFlow, in various modes of execution.

Required packages

You need a list of packaged installed on your computer before building PhasicFlow:

  • git, for cloning the code and package management
  • g++, for compiling the code
  • cmake, for generating build system
  • tbb, a parallel library for STL algorithms
  • Cuda (if GPU is targeted), for compiling the code for CUDA execution.
  • Kokkos, the parallelization backend of PhasicFlow

git

if git is not installed on your computer, enter the following commands

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install git

g++ (C++ compiler)

The code is tested with g++ (gnu C++ compiler). The default version of g++ on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or upper is sufficient for compiling. If it is not installed on your operating system, enter the following command:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install g++

CMake

You also need to have CMake-3.22 or higher installed on your computer.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install cmake

tbb (2020.1-2 or higher)

For Ubuntu 20.04 LTS or higher versions, you can install tbb using apt. For now, some parallel algorithms on host side rely on tbb parallel library (C++ parallel backend). Use e following commands to install it:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install libtbb-dev

If you are compiling on Ubuntu-18.04 LTS, you need to enter the following commands to get the right version (2020.1-2 or higher) of tbb:

$ wget "http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/t/tbb/libtbb2_2020.1-2_amd64.deb"
$ sudo dpkg --install libtbb2_2020.1-2_amd64.deb
$ wget "http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/t/tbb/libtbb-dev_2020.1-2_amd64.deb"
$ sudo dpkg --install libtbb-dev_2020.1-2_amd64.deb

Cuda

If you want to build PhasicFlow to be executed on an nvidia-GPU, you need to install the latest version of Cuda compiler, which is compatible with your hardware and OS, on your computer.

How to build?

Here you will learn how to build PhasicFlow for single execution mode. Follow the steps below to install it on your computer. Tested operating systems are:

  • Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
  • Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Step 1: Package check

Make sure that you have installed all the required packages on your computer. See above for more information.

Step 2: Cloning Kokkos

It is assumed that Kokkos source is located in the home folder of your computer. Clone the latest version of Kokkos into your home folder:

$ cd ~
$ mkdir Kokkos
$ cd Kokkos
$ git clone https://github.com/kokkos/kokkos.git

or simply download and extract the source code of Kokkos in ~/Kokkos folder. In the end, the top level CMakeLists.txt file should be located in ~/Kokkos/kokkos folder.

Step 3: Cloning PhasicFlow

Create the PhasicFlow folder in your home folder and then clone the source code into that folder:

$ cd ~
$ mkdir PhasicFlow
$ cd PhasicFlow
$ git clone https://github.com/PhasicFlow/phasicFlow.git

Step 4: Environmental variables

Opne the bashrc file using the following command:

$ gedit ~/.bashrc

and add the following line to the end of the file, save and close it.

source $HOME/PhasicFlow/phasicFlow/cmake/bashrc

this will introduce a new source file for setting the environmental variables of PhasicFlow. If you want to load these variables in the current open terminal, you need to source it. Or, simply close the terminal and open a new terminal.

Step 5: Building PhasicFlow

Follow one of the followings to build PhasicFlow for one mode of execution.

Serial build for CPU

In a new terminal enter the following commands:

$ cd ~/PhasicFlow/phasicFlow
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ../ -DpFlow_Build_Serial=On
$ make install

For faster builds, use make install -j. This will use all the CPU cores on your computer for building.

OpenMP build for CPU

$ cd ~/PhasicFlow/phasicFlow
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ../ -DpFlow_Build_OpenMP=On
$ make install

GPU build for parallel execution on CUDA-enabled GPUs

$ cd ~/PhasicFlow/phasicFlow
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ../ -DpFlow_Build_Cuda=On
$ make install

After building, bin, include, and lib folders will be created in ~/PhasicFlow/phasicFlow/ folder. Now you are ready to use PhasicFlow.

note 1: When compiling the code in parallel, you need to have enough RAM on your computer. As a rule, you need 1 GB free RAM per each processor in your computer for compiling in parallel. You may want to use fewer number of cores on your computer by using the following command:

$ make install -j 3

the above command only uses 3 cores for compiling.

note 2: By default PhasicFlow is compiled with double as floating point variable. You can compile it with float. Just in the command line of camke added -DpFlow_Build_Double=Off flag to compile it with float. For example if you are building for cuda, you can enter the following command:

$ cmake ../ -DpFlow_Build_Cuda=On -DpFlow_Build_Double=Off

Step 6: Testing

In the current terminal or a new terminal enter the following command:

$ checkPhasicFlow

This command shows the host and device environments and software version. If PhasicFlow was build correctly, you would get the following output:

Initializing host/device execution spaces . . .
Host execution space is Serial
Device execution space is Cuda
ou are using phasicFlow v-0.1 (copyright(C): www.cemf.ir)
In this build, double is used for floating point operations.
Finalizing host/device execution space ....