On 30 May 2015 at 12:29, Juan Luis Cano <[email protected]> wrote: > On 2015-05-30 13:20, Garth N. Wells wrote: >> >> A collection of images for running FEniCS inside Linux containers >> using Docker (https://www.docker.com/) are now available. With a >> container image, a FEniCS environment can be quickly and reliably >> created with just one line. There is no performance difference with >> respect to a 'native installation' (including when running in parallel >> with MPI), and once downloaded a container can be launched >> near-instantly. This provides immediately a shell within which FEniCS >> code can be executed. In many cases, the Docker images will be faster >> than user installations on the same system as we have tuned the builds >> for performance. >> >> Once you have Docker installed, getting a FEniCS release environment >> is as simple as: >> >> docker run -t -i fenicsproject/stable-ppa:latest >> >> To launch the container and mount the current directory inside the >> container: >> >> docker run -v $(pwd)/build:/home/fenics/build -t -i >> fenicsproject/stable-ppa:latest >> >> You can launch as many containers as you wish. >> >> The images are built and hosted on Dockerhub at >> https://registry.hub.docker.com/repos/fenicsproject/. At present we >> provide three images: >> >> 1. A release environment based in the latest release PPA >> (https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/fenicsproject/stable-ppa/) >> >> 2. A pre-built, recent development version snapshot of FEniCS >> (https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/fenicsproject/dev/), which includes >> a script for updating the FEniCS build. >> >> 3. A FEniCS development environment image, which provides all the >> necessary FEniCS dependencies but does not provide FEniCS. This image >> is suitable for developers who wish to build the FEniCS libraries >> themselves. It provides a script for building or updating a >> development version of FEniCS. Image (2) builds on this image. >> >> Instructions for launching the containers are provided on the >> Dockerhub page for each image. >> >> The images are based on a Ubuntu 14.04 LTS image that is tailored to >> Docker containers. For those who are interested, the Dockerfiles are >> hosted at https://github.com/fenics/docker, and new images are >> automatically built on Dockerhub when a change is pushed to the >> repository that holds the Dockerfiles. The Dockerfiles provide >> advanced users with a guide on how to create customised FEniCS >> environments. >> >> There will be live demonstrations of Docker use at the FEniCS'15 >> Workshop. We'll be refining guides to using Linux containers with >> FEniCS as we get feedback. Please send any feedback on the containers >> to [email protected], and register any issues at >> https://github.com/FEniCS/docker/issues. >> >> Garth, Jack and Larry >> _______________________________________________ >> fenics mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://fenicsproject.org/mailman/listinfo/fenics > > > This looks awesome! Are you thinking of making this the preferred way of > installing FEniCS or just providing it as an extra option? >
At this stage it's another option. It is a very easy approach to maintain, and since there is no performance penalty I think it's the most promising approach available at the moment for distributing scientific software. We'll see what happens. Garth > Regards, > > Juan Luis Cano _______________________________________________ fenics-support mailing list [email protected] http://fenicsproject.org/mailman/listinfo/fenics-support
