Software Installation and Management at MSI

Software installation and management on shared computing resources can be a real headache. Security policies, system administration limitations, and changes to the underlying operating system can all get in the way of installing, maintaining, and running software. This workshop will examine strategies for creating durable, maintainable, and reproducible software environments that will stay out of the way of your research or creative workflows.

This workshop will cover how to:

• Modify the shell environment so that you can install and run software from your group or home directory
• Organize your software installation, source code, and install notes
• Understand the contents of an environment module file, why they are used, and how to create your own
• Install packages using make, cmake, anaconda, pip, and singularity

To be successful, you should have:

• An active MSI account
• A computer you can use for the workshop, with the ability to connect to a shell session on MSI resources
• An understanding of the concepts of files and directories
• Some familiarity with using the bash shell for navigating a filesystem, and for creating and editing files
• Familiarity with the concepts of "installing software," and "building from source." If you know what these terms generally mean or if you have installed software on your personal computer in the past, you have enough knowledge of these concepts to succeed in this workshop
• The Zoom videoconferencing client installed on your computer, if attending remotely

Register