Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Improve DISTRIBUTING.md, fix a detail in README.md
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
In README.md, i486 does not work (issue JuliaLang#7185), better take a
correct example.
  • Loading branch information
nalimilan committed Sep 20, 2014
1 parent af42324 commit a60897d
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Showing 2 changed files with 49 additions and 7 deletions.
54 changes: 48 additions & 6 deletions DISTRIBUTING.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ order to create a portable, working Julia distribution, we have
separated most of the notes by OS.

Note that while the code for Julia is
[MIT-licensed](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/LICENSE.md),
[MIT-licensed, with a few exceptions](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/LICENSE.md),
the distribution created by the techniques described herein will be
GPL licensed, as various dependent libraries such as `FFTW`, `Rmath`,
`SuiteSparse`, and `git` are GPL licensed. We do hope to have a
Expand All @@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ pregenerate the `base/version_git.jl` file with:

make -C base version_git.jl.phony

Juila has lots of build dependencies where we use patched versions that has not
Julia has lots of build dependencies where we use patched versions that has not
yet been included by the popular package managers. These dependencies will usually
be automatically downloaded when you build, but if you want to be able to build
Julia on a computer without internet access you should create a source-dist archive
Expand All @@ -43,6 +43,25 @@ to create a Make.user file containing:

override TAGGED_RELEASE_BANNER = "my-package-repository build"

Target Architectures
--------------------

By default, Julia optimizes its system image to the native architecture of
the build machine. This is usually not what you want when building packages,
as it will make Julia fail at startup on any machine with incompatible CPUs
(in particular older ones with more restricted instruction sets).

We therefore recommend that you pass the `MARCH` variable when calling `make`,
setting it to the baseline target you intend to support. This will determine
the target CPU for both the Julia executable and libraries, and the system
image (the latter can also be set using `JULIA_CPU_TARGET`). Typically useful
values for x86 CPUs are `x86-64` and `core2` (for 64-bit builds) and
`pentium4` (for 32-bit builds). Unfortunately, CPUs older than Pentium 4
are currently not supported (see
[this issue](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/7185)).

The full list of CPU targets supported by LLVM can be obtained by running
`llc -mattr=help`.

Linux
-----
Expand All @@ -52,10 +71,17 @@ installation. If you wish to create a distribution package such as a
`.deb`, or `.rpm`, some extra effort is needed. See the
[julia-debian](http://github.com/staticfloat/julia-debian) repository
for an example of what metadata is needed for creating `.deb` packages
for Debian and Ubuntu-based systems. Although we have not yet experimented
for Debian and Ubuntu-based systems. See the
[Fedora package](https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/package/julia/)
for RPM-based distributions. Although we have not yet experimented
with it, [Alien](https://wiki.debian.org/Alien) could be used to
generate Julia packages for various Linux distributions.

Julia supports overriding standard installation directories via `prefix`
and other environment variables you can pass when calling `make` and
`make install`. See Make.inc for their list. `DESTDIR` can also be used
to force the installation into a temporary directory.

By default, Julia loads `$prefix/etc/julia/juliarc.jl` as an
installation-wide initialization file. This file can be used by
distribution managers to provide paths to various binaries such as a
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -102,8 +128,8 @@ Notes on BLAS and LAPACK
Julia builds OpenBLAS by default, which includes the BLAS and LAPACK
libraries. On 32-bit architectures, Julia builds OpenBLAS to use
32-bit integers, while on 64-bit architectuers, Julia builds OpenBLAS
to use 64-bit integers. It is essential that all Julia functions that
call BLAS and LAPACK API routines use integers of the correct width.
to use 64-bit integers (ILP64). It is essential that all Julia functions
that call BLAS and LAPACK API routines use integers of the correct width.

Most BLAS and LAPACK distributions provided on linux distributions,
and even commercial implementations ship libraries that use 32-bit
Expand All @@ -120,6 +146,21 @@ all libraries that depend on BLAS and LAPACK. The Julia build process
will build all these libraries correctly, but when overriding defaults
and using system provided libraries, this consistency must be ensured.

Also note that Linux distributions sometimes ship several versions of
OpenBLAS, some of which enable multithreading, and others only working
in a serial fashion. For example, in Fedora, libopenblasp.so is threaded,
but libopenblas.so is not. We recommend using the former for optimal
performance. To ensure you are using the correct OpenBLAS, pass
`LIBBLAS=-l$(YOURBLAS)` and `LIBBLASNAME=lib$(YOURBLAS)` to `make`,
replacing `$(YOURBLAS)` with the name of your library. You can also
add `.so.$(SOMAJOR)` to the name of the library if you want your package
to work without requiring the unversioned `.so` symlink.

Finally, OpenBLAS includes its own optimized version of LAPACK. If you
set `USE_SYSTEM_BLAS=1` and `USE_SYSTEM_LAPACK=1`, you should also set
`LIBLAPACK=-l$(YOURBLAS)` and `LIBLAPACKNAME=lib$(YOURBLAS)`. Else, the
reference LAPACK will be used and performance will typically be much lower.

Notes on Rmath
==============

Expand All @@ -136,7 +177,8 @@ used.
Compilation scripts
===================

The [julia-nightly-packaging](https://github.com/staticfloat/julia-nightly-packaging) repository contains multiple example scripts to ease the creation of
The [julia-nightly-packaging](https://github.com/staticfloat/julia-nightly-packaging)
repository contains multiple example scripts to ease the creation of
binary packages. It also includes miscellaneous tools to do things such as
fetching the last good commit that passed the
[Travis](https://travis-ci.org/JuliaLang/julia/builds) tests.
Expand Down
2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion README.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -122,7 +122,7 @@ Julia does not install anything outside the directory it was cloned into. Julia

Julia can be built for a non-generic architecture by configuring the `ARCH` Makefile variable. See the appropriate section of `Make.inc` for additional customization options, such as `MARCH` and `JULIA_CPU_TARGET`.

For example, to build for i486, set `ARCH=i486` and install the necessary system libraries for linking. On Ubuntu, these may include lib32gfortran3 (also manually call `ln -s /usr/lib32/libgfortran3.so.0 /usr/lib32/libgfortran3.so`) and lib32gcc1, lib32stdc++6, among others.
For example, to build for Pentium 4, set `MARCH=pentium4` and install the necessary system libraries for linking. On Ubuntu, these may include lib32gfortran3 (also manually call `ln -s /usr/lib32/libgfortran3.so.0 /usr/lib32/libgfortran3.so`) and lib32gcc1, lib32stdc++6, among others.

You can also set `MARCH=native` for a maximum-performance build customized for the current machine CPU.

Expand Down

0 comments on commit a60897d

Please sign in to comment.