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Beta release 5.0.0beta1 (24 Dec 2024)

Danger

This is an older beta release of EasyBuild v5.0.0, which should no longer be used.

Use EasyBuild v5.0.0beta2 instead.

Warning

This is an early pre-release that includes the majority of changes that will be included in EasyBuild v5.0.0.

It can be used for testing and providing feedback (reporting bugs or unexpected behaviour, etc.).

Additional changes can still be made before the release of EasyBuild v5.0.0, see below.

Highlighted changes

EasyBuild v5.0.0 will include some significant changes compared to EasyBuild v4.x.

Some of those changes are internal improvements and will be invisible to most users, but many others may need special attention as they incorporate new features, changes of behavior or deprecations that can impact your workflow.

This includes (but is not limited to):

  • Python >= 3.6 is required to run EasyBuild (Python >= 3.9 is recommended);
  • using Lmod >= v8.0 or Environment Modules >= v4.3.0 is required as modules tool (check with module --version);
  • a new function named run_shell_cmd is used to run shell commands like cmake, make, pip, etc. (more info here);
  • the default setting of some configuration options has changed:
    • RPATH linking is used by default (can be disabled with --disable-rpath);
    • trace output is enabled by default (can be disabled with --disable-trace);
    • Lua module files generated by EasyBuild will by default:
      • use depends_on rather than load (can be disabled with --disable-module-depends-on);
      • include an extensions statement to expose the list of included extensions (can be disabled with --disable-module-extensions);
    • reproducible creation of source tarballs from Git repositories via git_config in sources easyconfig parameter (when using Python >= 3.9);
    • the use_pip and sanity_pip_check custom easyconfig parameters used by the PythonPackage and PythonBundle easyblocks are enabled by default;
  • some functionality has been deprecated, including the use of the run_cmd and run_cmd_qa functions (run_shell_cmd should be used instead);
  • easyconfigs using an old unsupported toolchain have been moved to the easyconfigs archive;

Installation

To install the initial beta release of EasyBuild v5.0.0 (5.0.0beta1), you can either:

  • use the provided easyconfig file, for example using:

    eb --from-pr 22049

  • install into a Python virtual environment:

    venv_name='venv-eb-5.0.0beta1'
python3 -m venv ${venv_name}
unset PYTHONPATH
source ${venv_name}/bin/activate

tag='5.0.0beta1'
pip install https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-framework/archive/easybuild-framework-v${tag}.tar.gz
pip install https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyblocks/archive/easybuild-easyblocks-v${tag}.tar.gz
pip install https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/archive/easybuild-easyconfigs-v${tag}.tar.gz
# optional dependencies for EasyBuild
pip install archspec rich

Planned additional changes

A couple of additional changes that will be included in EasyBuild v5.0.0 are still a work-in-progress, including (but not limited to):

For a complete overview of planned changes, see the GitHub dashboard for EasyBuild v5.0.