docs: installation should mention usage of openmpi instead?

[maurerle]

I could not get repast4py working with mpich and libmpich-dev installed only.
See here: mpi4py/mpi4py#335 (comment) for more information.

I could build repast4py using pip though when having libopenmpi-dev and openmpi-bin installed.

conda create -n repast python=3.10
conda activate repast
rm $(dirname $(which python))/../compiler_compat/ld
env CC=mpicxx pip install repast4py worked.

So the docs should maybe switch to openmpi instead? :)

Tested on
Linux 6.7.12
Debian 12
conda 24.5.0

➜  ~ mpicc -v
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=/usr/bin/gcc
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/12/lto-wrapper
OFFLOAD_TARGET_NAMES=nvptx-none:amdgcn-amdhsa
OFFLOAD_TARGET_DEFAULT=1
Target: x86_64-linux-gnu
Configured with: ../src/configure -v --with-pkgversion='Debian 12.2.0-14' --with-bugurl=file:///usr/share/doc/gcc-12/README.Bugs --enable-languages=c,ada,c++,go,d,fortran,objc,obj-c++,m2 --prefix=/usr --with-gcc-major-version-only --program-suffix=-12 --program-prefix=x86_64-linux-gnu- --enable-shared --enable-linker-build-id --libexecdir=/usr/lib --without-included-gettext --enable-threads=posix --libdir=/usr/lib --enable-nls --enable-clocale=gnu --enable-libstdcxx-debug --enable-libstdcxx-time=yes --with-default-libstdcxx-abi=new --enable-gnu-unique-object --disable-vtable-verify --enable-plugin --enable-default-pie --with-system-zlib --enable-libphobos-checking=release --with-target-system-zlib=auto --enable-objc-gc=auto --enable-multiarch --disable-werror --enable-cet --with-arch-32=i686 --with-abi=m64 --with-multilib-list=m32,m64,mx32 --enable-multilib --with-tune=generic --enable-offload-targets=nvptx-none=/build/gcc-12-bTRWOB/gcc-12-12.2.0/debian/tmp-nvptx/usr,amdgcn-amdhsa=/build/gcc-12-bTRWOB/gcc-12-12.2.0/debian/tmp-gcn/usr --enable-offload-defaulted --without-cuda-driver --enable-checking=release --build=x86_64-linux-gnu --host=x86_64-linux-gnu --target=x86_64-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
Supported LTO compression algorithms: zlib zstd
gcc version 12.2.0 (Debian 12.2.0-14) 

[VanjaFalck]

A comment related to this post: I have problems with running repast4py with python 3.10.14 on Ubuntu 22.04 (kernel 6.5.0-45) with both the global approach installing mpich (sudo apt install ...) and using an anaconda (v.2.6.2) environment applying the default mpich-mpicxx (v.4.2.2). It catches an undefined symbol: MPI_Allgather error when running the Walker-example. Strangely, when first applying mpich only and next adding mpich-mpicxx works and run the Walker-example without the above error.

Setting up with python 3.9.19 and adding mpich-mpicxx (v.4.2.2) directly (installs mpich) and then installing repast4py worked fine. No errors running the Walker example in this setting.

As a newbe using repast4py I would like the installation instructions to cover protected environment installs like anaconda. I did not find any help on the error above, so this became a trial-and-error search.

Any way, thanks for your contributions, I am looking forward to exploring repast4py!

[ncollier]

Thanks for the report. I think the issue here is that anaconda typically installs its own MPI when installing mpi4py via conda, and that leads to various library dependency and loading issues. I have some notes about how to avoid this when using anaconda. I'll try to integrate these into the install docs.

[ncollier]

Using the info in the comments above experiment with different install configurations and update install docs appropriately.