Installing and Using mpiPython on Debian-based Systems

Overview

This guide outlines the steps to install and use mpiPython on Debian-based systems.

Prerequisites

• Debian-based system (e.g., Ubuntu, Debian)
• build-essential package installed (provides necessary compilers and tools)
• 'mpich' the program is made to work with this, you can either have it installed by package manager or custom compiled with '--enable-shared'
• Python >=3.10

Installation Steps

1. Install required packages:

   sudo apt install build-essential mpich

2. Install mpiPython:

   pip install mpiPython

3. Compile Library

   python -m mpiPython

The last step is not technically needed, but because mpiPython will self compile the library if it is not present, running a program with a lot of nodes will have every node compile the shared library.

Additional Notes

• Virtual Environments: Consider using virtual environments to isolate Python environments and avoid conflicts.

Using mpiPython

Once installed, you can import and use mpiPython in your Python scripts:

from mpiPython import MPIpy

MPI = MPIpy()
rank = MPI.Rank()
size = MPI.Size()

print("Hello from process {} out of {}".format(rank, size))

To run program:

$mpirun -n 2 python file.py