Archive for February, 2015

February 26th, 2015

Environment modules are widely used in the High Performance Computing (HPC) world where sysadmins need to install dozens, or maybe hundreds of potentially conflicting applications, libraries and compilers on multi-user machines. The University of Manchester’s Computational Shared Facility (CSF), for example, makes extensive use of environment modules and would be extremely difficult to run without them.

Once the sysadmin has correctly installed an application (MATLAB 2014a say) and set up the corresponding module file, making it available to your shell is as easy as doing

module load apps/binapps/matlab/R2014a

Unloading the module is just as easy

module unload apps/binapps/matlab/R2014a

On a heavily used, multi-user system environment modules are invaluable! Every user can have whatever compilers, libraries and applications they like — they just load and unload whatever they need from the huge selection supported by their ever-friendly sysadmins.

Environment modules on Ubuntu

I needed to install environment modules on a VM running Ubuntu 14.04 for my own use. I found a very nice setup guide at http://www.setuptips.com/unix/setup-environment-modules-on-ubuntu/ but it didn’t work. On attempting to compile, I got the error message

cmdModule.c:644:15: error: 'Tcl_Interp' has no member named 'errorLine'

This is a known bug in version 3.2.9c of environment modules and has a work-around.

I also found a set up guide at http://nickgeoghegan.net/linux/installing-environment-modules which had some useful advice on configuration..

Combining information from these sources, I managed to get a working install. Here are the steps I did in full for a clean Ubuntu 14.04 image

#Install the tcl development package
sudo apt-get install tcl-dev

#Make the directories where my modules and packages are going to live
sudo mkdir /opt/modules
sudo mkdir /opt/packages

#Get the source code. This was the most up to date version as of 25th Feb 2015
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/modules/Modules/modules-3.2.9/modules-3.2.9c.tar.gz

#unpack and enter source directory
tar xvzf modules-3.2.9c.tar.gz
cd modules-3.2.9

#Configure using the workaround and selecting my module folder 
CPPFLAGS="-DUSE_INTERP_ERRORLINE" ./configure --with-module-path=/opt/modules/

#make and install
make
sudo make install

#Edit the modulefiles path. Comment out all lines starting /usr so that only /opt/modules is used
sudo sed -i 's~^/usr~#/usr~' /usr/local/Modules/3.2.9/init/.modulespath

#Configure the shell to use modules
sudo tee /etc/profile.d/modules.sh > /dev/null << 'EOF'
#----------------------------------------------------------------------#
# system-wide profile.modules #
# Initialize modules for all sh-derivative shells #
#----------------------------------------------------------------------#
trap "" 1 2 3

MODULES=/usr/local/Modules/3.2.9

case "$0" in
-bash|bash|*/bash) . $MODULES/init/bash ;;
-ksh|ksh|*/ksh) . $MODULES/init/ksh ;;
-sh|sh|*/sh) . $MODULES/init/sh ;;
*) . $MODULES/init/sh ;; # default for scripts
esac

trap - 1 2 3
EOF

#Add modules to your .bashrc file
echo '#For modules' >> ~/.bashrc
echo '. /etc/profile.d/modules.sh' >> ~/.bashrc

That takes care of the basic setup but modules is pretty useless at this stage. To make it useful, you need to install some extra software and the corresponding module file.

Installing a module file for Anaconda Python 2.1
This is a really simple example of how to set up a basic module file

I downloaded and installed Anaconda Python 2.1 to /opt/packages and created a file called anaconda2.1 in /opt/modules containing the following

#%Module1.0
proc ModulesHelp { } {
global dotversion
 
puts stderr "\tAnaconda Python 2.1 providing Python 2.7.8"
}
 
module-whatis "Anaconda Python 2.1"
prepend-path PATH /opt/packages/anaconda/bin

Now, when I do the command

module avail

I get

-------------------------- /opt/modules/ ---------------------------
anaconda2.1

I can load my anaconda2.1 module with the command

module load anaconda2.1

Now, when I type python at the command prompt, I’ll be using Anaconda’s python rather than the system python. Once I’m done, I can unload with

module unload anaconda2.1

This example is so trivial it’s almost not worth it — modules really come into their own when you need to support loads of compilers and corresponding libraries. There’s an example using gcc at http://nickgeoghegan.net/linux/installing-environment-modules.

February 19th, 2015

I’ve been working at The University of Manchester for almost a decade and will be leaving at the end of this week! A huge part of my job was to support a major subset of Manchester’s site licensed application software portfolio so naturally I’ve made use of a lot of it over the years. As of February 20th, I will no longer be entitled to use any of it!

This article is the second in a series where I’ll look at some of the software that’s become important to me and what my options are on leaving Manchester.  Here, I consider MATLAB – a technical computing environment that has come to dominate my career at Manchester. For the last 10 years, I’ve used MATLAB at least every week, if not most days.

I had a standalone license for MATLAB and several toolboxes – Simulink, Image Processing, Parallel Computing, Statistics and Optimization. Now, I’ve got nothing! Unfortunately for me, I’ve also got hundreds of scripts, mex files and a few Simulink models that I can no longer run! These are my options:

Go somewhere else that has a MATLAB site license

  • I’ll soon be joining the University of Sheffield who have a MATLAB site license. A great option if you can do it.

Use something else

  • Octave – Octave is a pretty good free and open source clone of MATLAB and quite a few of my programs would work without modification. Others would require some rewriting and, in some cases, that rewriting could be extensive! There is no Simulink support.
  • Scilab – It’s free and it’s MATLAB-like-ish but I’d have to rewrite my code most of the time. I could also port some of my Simulink models to Scilab as was done in this link.
  • Rewrite all my code to use something completely different. What I’d choose would depend on what I’m trying to achieve but options include Python, Julia and R among others.

Compile!

  • If all I needed was the ability to run a few MATLAB applications I’d written, I could compile them using the MATLAB Compiler and keep the result. The whole point of the MATLAB Compiler is to distribute MATLAB applications to those who don’t have a MATLAB license. Of course once I’ve lost access to MATLAB itself, debugging and adding features will be  um……tricky!

Get a hobbyist license for MATLAB

  • MATLAB Home – This is the full version of MATLAB for hobbyists. Writing a non-profit blog such as WalkingRandomly counts as a suitable ‘hobby’ activity so I could buy this license. MATLAB itself for 85 pounds with most of the toolboxes coming in at an extra 25 pounds each. Not bad at all! The extra cost of the toolboxes would still lead me to obsess over how to do things without toolboxes but, to be honest, I think that’s an obsession I’d miss if it weren’t there! Buying all of the same toolboxes as I had before would end up costing me a total of £210+VAT.
  • Find a MOOC that comes with free MATLAB – Mathworks make MATLAB available for free for students of some online courses such as the one linked to here. Bear in mind, however, that the license only lasts for the duration of the course.

Academic Use

If I were to stay in academia but go to an institution with no MATLAB license, I could buy myself an academic standalone license for MATLAB and the various toolboxes I’m interested in. The price lists are available at http://uk.mathworks.com/pricing-licensing/

For reference, current UK academic prices are

  • MATLAB £375 + VAT
  • Simulink £375 + VAT
  • Standard Toolboxes (statistics, optimisation, image processing etc) £150 +VAT each
  • Premium Toolboxes (MATLAB Compiler, MATLAB Coder etc) – Pricing currently not available

My personal mix of MATLAB, Simulink and 4 toolboxes would set me back £1350 + VAT.

Commercial Use

If I were to use MATLAB professionally and outside of academia, I’d need to get a commercial license. Prices are available from the link above which, at the time of writing, are

  • MATLAB £1600 +VAT
  • Simulink £2400 + VAT
  • Standard Toolboxes £800 +VAT each
  • Premium Toolboxes – Pricing currently not available

My personal mix of MATLAB, Simulink and 4 toolboxes would set me back £7200 + VAT.

Contact MathWorks

If anyone does find themselves in a situation where they have MATLAB code and no means to run it, then they can always try contacting MathWorks and ask for help in finding a solution.

 

February 2nd, 2015

I’ve been working at The University of Manchester for almost a decade and will be leaving in just less than 3 weeks time! A huge part of my job was to support a major subset of Manchester’s site licensed application software portfolio so naturally I’ve made use of a lot of it over the years. As of February 20th, I will no longer be entitled to use any of it!

This article is the first in a series where I’ll look at some of the software that’s become important to me and what my options are on leaving Manchester.

Here, I consider Mathematica – a computer algebra system and technical computing environment that I’m very fond of. I’ve been a Mathematica user for over 15 years and yet, suddenly, I find myself license-less! So much code, so much time invested! What to do?

Options for all use cases

  • Before leaving University, contact the administrator of your site license. It could be that you are entitled to a discount on buying one of the various licenses on offer.
  • Use the CDF Player – With this free tool, You’ll be able to look at and interact (at least partially) with Mathematica notebooks.
  • Re-write all code to use something else. Which language to use is open to massive debate but the closest open source systems to Mathematica’s notebook-like interface are Jupyter (previously IPython) and Sage. The languages are, of course, rather different though!

Hobbyist use

General mucking around!

  • Buy the home edition – The home edition of Mathematica can be used for  non-professional and non-academic purposes and, at the time of writing, costs £195 as a one-off cost or £95 per year.
  • Use Mathematica online: Home – Same rules as the home edition above but it’s a cloud-based, online version. Currently costs £95 per year.
  • Buy a Raspberry Pi –  The Raspberry Pi comes with a free version of Mathematica! This means that you can buy an entire computer AND a copy of Mathematica for less than the standard home-use license. I had a play with Mathematica on the Raspberry Pi just over a year ago and it was very nice. Now that the faster, more powerful Raspberry Pi 2 has been released this option is even more compelling!

Academic use

If you want to use Mathematica in an academic environment that doesn’t have a site license, you’ll need to purchase an individual academic license. At the time of writing, that will cost £860 + VAT.

Professional use

There are various grades of professional license and the cost varies according to how many compute kernels you need or Wolfram Alpha API calls you want to make. Current prices start at £2,035 +VAT

 

 

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