This is not really an mpich version of mpb-mpi.

[Sunil Sandhu]

1) My Ubuntu release is Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS.

2) The version of the mpb-mpi package I am using is 1.4.2-17 0.

3) When installing mpb-mpi which is described as "parallel (mpich) version" in http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/science/mpb-mpi, I expect mpich dependencies to be installed.

4) Instead it installs dependencies for open mpi (including the open mpi version of mpirun etc). So I get an mpb-mpi that is linked to libopenmpi1.3 instead of libmpich2-3.

Maybe there should be two versions of mpb-mpi in the repo: i.e. (i) mpb-mpi linked with libopenmpi1.3, and (ii) mpb-mpi linked with libmpich2-3.

[Thorsten Alteholz (alteholz)]

Hi Sunil,

On Sun, 19 May 2013, Sunil Sandhu wrote:

> 3) When installing mpb-mpi which is described as "parallel (mpich)
> version" in http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/science/mpb-mpi, I expect
> mpich dependencies to be installed.

I am sorry to tell you that this description is a bit outdated. It was
true when long time ago mpich1 was the current implementation of mpi. As
there appeared other alternatives later, it was decided to link all mpi
programs against the mpi version that is best supported for a given
architecture. Therefore the metapackages mpi-default-bin and
mpi-default-dev have been created and mpb depends on them.
So for almost all architectures openmpi is the default mpi implementation
that is used, for the rest it is mpich2:
  openmpi-bin [alpha armel armhf i386 amd64 lpia ia64 powerpc sparc kfreebsd-i386 kfreebsd-amd64 hurd-i386],
  mpich2 [!alpha !armel !armhf !i386 !amd64 !lpia !ia64 !powerpc !sparc !kfreebsd-i386 !kfreebsd-amd64 !hurd-i386]

> Maybe there should be two versions of mpb-mpi in the repo: i.e. (i) mpb-mpi linked with libopenmpi1.3, and (ii) mpb-mpi linked with libmpich2-3.

Is there a reason why you prefer mpich2 over openmpi?

    Thorsten

[Sunil Sandhu (centaur-w)]

I have found that mpi communication is faster with mpich2 (as compared to open mpi) in a couple of systems I have worked with (for example the HP Proliant DL980). But this varies from architecture to architecture, so it will be nice to have both versions (i.e. open-mpi and mpich2). If this is an issue, I can just build the mpich2 version of mpb-mpi on my own (when I need an mpich2 version).

In any case, it will be good to clearly state that the current mpb-mpi in the repo is an open-mpi version and NOT an mpich version i.e. fix the "parallel (mpich) version" label.