Linux Installation Guide

Setting up Development Environment using Spack

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have the following:

NVIDIA GPU with CUDA support (for GPU acceleration)
NVIDIA Driver installed on your system (if using GPU acceleration) - Check with nvidia-smi command - If not installed, follow your distribution’s instructions for NVIDIA driver installation

Installing Spack

Clone Spack repository:

git clone -c feature.manyFiles=true https://github.com/spack/spack.git
cd spack
git checkout releases/v0.21

Set up Spack environment:

# Add to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
export SPACK_ROOT=/path/to/spack
source $SPACK_ROOT/share/spack/setup-env.sh

Verify installation:
```
spack --version
spack compiler find
```

Setting up METADA Environment

Create a new Spack environment:

spack env create metada
spack env activate metada

Add required packages:

# Core development tools
spack add cmake@3.30: ninja gcc
# GPU acceleration support
spack add cuda@12.1.0
# Scientific computing packages
spack add eigen boost
# Configuration packages
spack add yaml-cpp nlohmann-json
# Testing and development tools
spack add googletest
spack add lcov

Install ng-log from source (since it’s not available in Spack):

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ng-log/ng-log.git
cd ng-log
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$SPACK_ROOT/opt/spack/linux-ubuntu22.04-x86_64/gcc-12.2.0/ng-log-master
ninja
ninja install
cd ../..

Configure environment:

spack.yaml

# Spack environment configuration for METADA
spack:
  # Specify package preferences and variants
  specs:
  - cmake@3.10.0:
  - ninja@1.10.0:
  - gcc@11.0.0:
  - cuda@12.1.0
  - eigen@3.4.0:
  - boost@1.74.0: +python +numpy
  - python@3.8.0: +shared
  - py-numpy
  - py-scipy
  - py-matplotlib
  - googletest@1.11.0: +gmock
  - lcov@1.16:
  - clang@15.0.0:
  - yaml-cpp
  - nlohmann-json

  # Package configuration
  packages:
    cuda:
      buildable: false
      externals:
      - spec: cuda@12.1.0
        prefix: /usr/local/cuda-12.1
    
    python:
      variants: +shared
      version: [3.8.0:]

    googletest:
      variants: +gmock
      version: [1.11.0:]

    all:
      compiler: [gcc@11.0.0:]
      providers:
        mpi: [openmpi]
        blas: [openblas]
        lapack: [openblas]

  # Compiler configuration
  compilers:
  - compiler:
      spec: gcc@11.0.0
      paths:
        cc: /usr/bin/gcc
        cxx: /usr/bin/g++
        f77: /usr/bin/gfortran
        fc: /usr/bin/gfortran
      flags: {}
      operating_system: ubuntu22.04
      target: x86_64
      modules: []
      environment: {}
      extra_rpaths: []

  # View configuration
  view: true
  concretizer:
    unify: true

Install the environment:
```
spack install
```

IDE Setup

Install VS Code:

# For Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install code
# For other distributions, download from code.visualstudio.com

Install extensions:

code --install-extension ms-vscode.cpptools
code --install-extension ms-vscode.cmake-tools
code --install-extension twxs.cmake

Building METADA

Build the project:

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \
  -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=17 \
  -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=$SPACK_ROOT/opt/spack/linux-ubuntu22.04-x86_64/gcc-12.2.0/ng-log-master
cmake --build build

Running Tests

Execute the test suite:

cd build
ctest --output-on-failure

Troubleshooting

Common issues and solutions:

Spack environment issues: Verify environment activation
Build failures: Check compiler compatibility
Missing dependencies: Use spack spec metada to verify package resolution
ng-log issues: Ensure ng-log is properly installed and CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH includes its installation directory