Rmpi is not currently available on CRAN, and I don't think it has been for a few months. It is available at http://www.stats.uwo.ca/faculty/yu/Rmpi/ Does anyone know its current status? A few months ago I corresponded with the author, who noted some build problems (specifically on Debian) were the hang up, and seemed to be working on it. I wasn't able to get it to work then (on a Debian GNU/Linux testing system). After having tried unsuccessfully to get it working last week on an oddball system, I tried again on my system. I was able to build the thing, but not actually get it working. The two obvious difficulties were that, first, I had to manually load the serialize library (which now conflicts with the name of something in the base package) and, second, that whenever I say makeCluster or makeMPIcluster the thing just hangs up. I've tried various permutations of running or not running lamboot first. I am able to to lamboot and lamexec, and I also tried setting LAMRSH to use ssh on the master. My "network" is just my dual-CPU machine. Tony Rossini's notes (http://www.analytics.washington.edu/~rossini/courses/cph-statcomp/cph-4.pdf) refer to SNOW and rpvm as being "currently maintained" (last page), which hints that Rmpi might not be. I'm kind of interested in getting Rmpi to work (I and others here have been using Rmpi), though I suppose we could switch to rpvm, so I'll probably keep fiddling with it. I'm using LAM 6.5.8-2. Footnote: Does anyone know if the serialize that comes with R 1.8.1 is compatible with the serialize package? Should the latter be unnecessary? -- Ross Boylan wk: (415) 502-4031 530 Parnassus Avenue (Library) rm 115-4 ross at biostat.ucsf.edu Dept of Epidemiology and Biostatistics fax: (415) 476-9856 University of California, San Francisco San Francisco, CA 94143-0840 hm: (415) 550-1062
The serialize package should no longer be needed since the functionality is now in R itself. I haven't run snow with a new version of Rmpi newer than 0.4-4; with that version things worked on my systems the last time I tried. We need to revize the paper you cite; when we get to that we'll hopefully have a chance to give a newer version of Rmpi a go. Best, luke On Tue, 23 Mar 2004, Ross Boylan wrote:> Rmpi is not currently available on CRAN, and I don't think it has been > for a few months. It is available at > http://www.stats.uwo.ca/faculty/yu/Rmpi/ > > Does anyone know its current status? > > A few months ago I corresponded with the author, who noted some build > problems (specifically on Debian) were the hang up, and seemed to be > working on it. I wasn't able to get it to work then (on a Debian > GNU/Linux testing system). After having tried unsuccessfully to get it > working last week on an oddball system, I tried again on my system. > > I was able to build the thing, but not actually get it working. The two > obvious difficulties were that, first, I had to manually load the > serialize library (which now conflicts with the name of something in the > base package) and, second, that whenever I say makeCluster or > makeMPIcluster the thing just hangs up. I've tried various permutations > of running or not running lamboot first. > > I am able to to lamboot and lamexec, and I also tried setting LAMRSH to > use ssh on the master. My "network" is just my dual-CPU machine. > > Tony Rossini's notes > (http://www.analytics.washington.edu/~rossini/courses/cph-statcomp/cph-4.pdf) refer to SNOW and rpvm as being "currently maintained" (last page), which hints that Rmpi might not be. > > I'm kind of interested in getting Rmpi to work (I and others here have > been using Rmpi), though I suppose we could switch to rpvm, so I'll > probably keep fiddling with it. I'm using LAM 6.5.8-2. > > Footnote: Does anyone know if the serialize that comes with R 1.8.1 is > compatible with the serialize package? Should the latter be > unnecessary? >-- Luke Tierney University of Iowa Phone: 319-335-3386 Department of Statistics and Fax: 319-335-3017 Actuarial Science 241 Schaeffer Hall email: luke at stat.uiowa.edu Iowa City, IA 52242 WWW: http://www.stat.uiowa.edu
I have some more good news and some questions. On Tue, 2004-03-23 at 20:50, Hao Yu wrote:> Sorry. I have not been able to update Rmpi since the version > 0.4-4 on R site.I don't think any version of Rmpi is on the R site at the moment. Minor aside: Also, it would be nice if the packages starting with "R" were consistent about whether it's "R" or "r." Rmpi but rpvm is a little dissonant. Unfortunately, there seems to be no agreement.> However, I have been using and testing Rmpi > internally since 0.4-4. Now it is version 0.4-7. See the > attached package. It requires R 1.8.1 (no more serialize > package requirement) and works with the newest MPI-LAM > versions 7. It will configure automatically if a rpm package > from www.lam-mpi.org is used. I tested it on both Redhat 9 > and Debian. At least it passed the package check without any > warning on Redhat 9. Now the problem is that it may have > some problems with the default lam coming with Debian > system. This is the reason why I hesitate to release it to > R.I'm happy to report the Rmpi 0.4-7 installs and works without a problem (or any necessary modification) on my Debian mostly testing system (it does have some unstable stuff, but in particular it has the older lam/mpi 6.5.8-2. version 7 has been held in unstable for 60 days because of some problems on alpha hardware). Note this is not quite the lam in the current stable Debian distro, which is at 6.5.6-6.> > I am also working on it to see if #ifdef can be used to work > MPI 1.2 specs other than LAM-MPI. > Hopefully in a couple of months, I am able to submit a > stable version to R.Great. Thanks. I think it would be well worth making 0.4-7 available at http://www.stats.uwo.ca/faculty/yu/Rmpi/. I'll send you, off list, the hacks I made to get the thing (starting with 0.4-6) to compile with the MPI 1.2ish mpich. It didn't run, but at least it did compile and load at the end. By the way, I'm in the dark about (r)sprng. From some of the snow docs, I thought that was really snow's business. But your site notes that the Rmpi packages are withough SPRNG support. And Tony Rossini's pages (I think) had a slightly cryptic remark that SPRNG under MPI was a bit dicey.> > Regards, > > Hao > > PS: Rmpi should still work without serializing as long as > native MPI calls are used. The serializing is mainly used to > help moving an arbitrarily R object around.I don't completely follow that, since I don't control whether or not native MPI calls are used, as far as I know. Do you mean that Rmpi can be used alone OK, but if you use snow (or, I guess Rmpi calls oriented toward snow and the transmission of R objects) it will need the serialize facility (prior to R 1.8)?