Docs:   Installation: UNIX

PETSc 2.0 requires a MINIMUM of 25 megabytes of disk space to install for a single operating system. The UNIX command "df" can be used to determine the amount of available disk space. See the PETSc FAQ for tips on reducing required space.

PETSc MUST be compiled with an ANSI C compiler (or C++ compiler). Many older Sun workstations have the Sun-bundled C compiler, which is NOT ANSI C and cannot be used. The Gnu compiler gcc can often be used as a replacement for systems that do not have a native ANSI C compiler.

Required Software:

Prior to installing PETSc 2.0, the machine must have:

Optional Packages:

PETSc provides an interface to several software packages.. These packages are not developed, maintained, or supported by the PETSc team; we merely provide an interface to them. To use any of these optional packages, obtain the following prior to installing PETSc:

Installing PETSc:

Test programs:

Fortran Users:

The PETSc Fortran libraries are built automatically during the installation outlined above. Before testing the fortran examples, please make sure that the c-version of the examples work correctly.

PETSc Fortran programs can use the suffix .F rather than the traditional suffix .f, so that the PETSc header files can be easily included in Fortran programs. See the Fortran chapter within the users manual for additional details regarding the Fortran interface. In order to use the suffix .f instead of .F, the user must edit the file ${PETSC_DIR}/include/foldinclude/petsc.h to hardwire the path for the local MPI include file. See the chapter 'PETSc Fortran Users' in the users manual for more information.

Multiple Installations:

When building PETSc for two or more machine types that share a common filesystem, for example sun4 and hpux, multiple PETSc directory trees are NOT needed. Only a single PETSc directory can (and should) be used; PETSc automatically places the libraries for each machine in a different location. In particular, the libraries for a given BOPT and PETSC_ARCH are installed in the directory, ${PETSC_DIR}/lib/lib${BOPT}/${PETSC_ARCH}.

Shared Libraries:

PETSc supports the use of shared libraries for the machines  solaris, alpha, IRIX, IRIX64, freebsd, and linux to enable faster linking and smaller executables.  These libraries are built automatically during installation. In addition, PETSc now defaults to using these libraries as dynamic libraries on these machines. For most users this does not matter.