Using software

A lot of scientific software is centrally available on the VSC clusters. To avoid conflicts between different software packages, the installations are offered as modules. The executables, libraries, headers, … of a certain module can only be used after that module has been loaded. By loading a certain set of modules, you can easily set up an environment that has precisely the software you need.

Toolchains are an important concept in this context. A toolchain consists of a set of compilers, MPI library and basic libraries that work together well with each other, and then a number of applications and other libraries compiled with that set of tools and thus often dependent on those. We use toolchains based on the Intel and GNU compilers, and refresh them up to twice a year, leading to version numbers like 2023a and 2023b for the first and second refresh of a given year. Some tools are installed outside a toolchain, e.g., additional versions requested by a small group of users for specific experiments, or tools that only depend on basic system libraries.

For basic information on the module system and more site-specific information, please consult the following pages:

• Module system basics
• Setting up the environment using Lmod at the HPC-UGent clusters
• The module system on Leuven clusters

Packages with additional documentation

MATLAB (a package by MathWorks)

• MATLAB getting started
  • Interactive use
  • Batch use
  • MATLAB compiler
• MATLAB parallel computing
  • General
  • KU Leuven clusters

R

• R command line arguments in scripts
  • Purpose
  • Prerequisites
  • Using Rscript and command line arguments
• R integrating C functions
  • Purpose
  • Prerequisites
  • Integration step by step
  • Further reading

Programming Languages

Some programming languages have an extensive standard library, but optionally allow to install extra packages. For most languages, the user can install packages in his own home directory without system administrator intervention. Some documentation for doing this for Perl and Python is provided.