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On Linux with Spack

A straightforward way to install MFEM is to use spack.

Installing spack

To install spack on Linux, the first step consists in cloning and loading it into a $SPACK directory (see spack for more details.)

Assuming spack well installed into the $SPACK directory, the following command enables to install MFEM with right additional packages:

source $SPACK/share/spack/setup-env.sh

spack install mfem+mpi+suite-sparse+sundials+superlu-dist+miniapps

Installing a given version of MFEM

The user is free to install different version of MFEM. By default, the last released is considered. otherwise, "@version" must be added at the end of the spack command.

Once MFEM is installed, priori to compile SLOTH, MFEM must be loaded and several environment variables must be defined:

   spack load mfem

   export HYPRE_DIR=$(spack location -i hypre)

   export MPI_DIR=$(spack location -i mpi)

   export METIS_DIR=$(spack location -i metis)

On the use of the envSloth.sh configuration file

These definitions are written into the configuration file envSloth.sh located in the root directory of the SLOTH repository. The use of this file is recommended to load the MFEM environment before compilling SLOTH.

  • Load the SLOTH configuration file: 
    bash ../envSloth.sh [OPTIONS]
    where [OPTIONS] are: 
        --release to build with Release compiler options 

    --optim to build with Optim compiler options 

    --debug to build with Debug compiler options 

    --coverage to build with Coverage compiler options 

    --minsizerel to build with MinSizeRel compiler options 

    --relwithdebinfo to build with RelWithDebInfo compiler options 

    --external to built SLOTH with an external package

By default, SLOTH is built with release compiler options.

  • Finally, compile 
    make -j N
    with N the number of jobs.