Ginkgo is a high-performance linear algebra library for manycore systems, with a focus on sparse solution of linear systems. It is implemented using modern C++ (you will need at least C++11 compliant compiler to build it), with GPU kernels implemented in CUDA.

An extensive database of up-to-date benchmark results is available in the performance data reposotiry. Visualizations of the database can be interactively generated using the Ginkgo Performance Explorer web application. The benchmark results are automatically updated using the CI system to always reflect the current state of the library.

For Ginkgo core library:

• cmake 3.1+
• C++11 compliant compiler, one of:
  • gcc 5.4.0+
  • clang 3.3+ (TODO: verify, works with 5.0)

The Ginkgo CUDA module has the following additional requirements:

• cmake 3.10+
• CUDA 7.0+ (TODO: verify, works with 8.0)
• Any host compiler restrictions your version of CUDA may impose also apply here. For the newest CUDA version, this information can be found in the CUDA installation guide

In addition, if you want to contribute code to Ginkgo, you will also need the following:

• clang-format 5.0.1+ (ships as part of clang)

For Ginkgo core library:

• cmake 3.1+
• C++11 compliant compiler, one of:
  • gcc 5.4.0+ (TODO: verify)
  • clang 3.3+ (TODO: verify)
  • Apple LLVM 8.0+ (TODO: verify)

The Ginkgo CUDA module has the following additional requirements:

• cmake 3.8+

• CUDA 7.0+ (TODO: verify)

• Any host compiler restrictions your version of CUDA may impose also apply here. For the newest CUDA version, this information can be found in the CUDA installation guide In addition, if you want to contribute code to Ginkgo, you will also need the following:

• clang-format 5.0.1+ (ships as part of clang)

• NOTE: If you want to use clang as your compiler and develop Ginkgo, you'll currently need two versions clang: clang 4.0.0 or older, as this is this version supporetd by the CUDA 9.1 toolkit, and clang 5.0.1 or newer, which will not be used for compilation, but only provide the clang-format utility

Windows is currently not supported, but we are working on porting the library there. If you are interested in helping us with this effort, feel free to contact one of the developers. (The library itself doesn't use any non-standard C++ features, so most of the effort here is in modifying the build system.)

TODO: Some restrictions will also apply on the version of C and C++ standard libraries installed on the system. We need to investigate this further.

Use the standard cmake build procedure:

mkdir build; cd build
cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" [OPTIONS] .. && make

Replace [OPTIONS] with desired cmake options for your build. Ginkgo adds the following additional switches to control what is being built:

• -DDEVEL_TOOLS={ON, OFF} sets up the build system for development (requires clang-format, will also download git-cmake-format), default is ON

• -DBUILD_TESTS={ON, OFF} builds Ginkgo's tests (will download googletest), default is ON

• -DBUILD_BENCHMARKS={ON, OFF} builds Ginkgo's benchmarks (will download gflags and rapidjson), default is ON

• -DBUILD_EXAMPLES={ON, OFF} builds Ginkgo's examples, default is ON

• -DBUILD_REFERENCE={ON, OFF} build reference implementations of the kernels, usefull for testing, default os OFF

• -DBUILD_OMP={ON, OFF} builds optimized OpenMP versions of the kernels, default is OFF

• -DBUILD_CUDA={ON, OFF} builds optimized cuda versions of the kernels (requires CUDA), default is OFF

• -DBUILD_DOC={ON, OFF} creates an HTML version of Ginkgo's documentation from inline comments in the code

• -DSET_CUDA_HOST_COMPILER={ON, OFF} instructs the build system to explicitly set CUDA's host compiler to match the commpiler used to build the the rest of the library (otherwise the nvcc toolchain uses its default host compiler). Setting this option may help if you're experiencing linking errors due to ABI incompatibilities. The default is OFF.

• -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=path sets the installation path for make install. The default value is usually something like /usr/local

• -DCUDA_ARCHITECTURES=<list> where <list> is a semicolon (;) separated list of architectures. Supported values are:

  • Auto
  • Kepler, Maxwell, Pascal, Volta
  • CODE, CODE(COMPUTE), (COMPUTE)

  Auto will automatically detect the present CUDA-enabled GPU architectures in the system. Kepler, Maxwell, Pascal and Volta will add flags for all architectures of that particular NVIDIA GPU generation. COMPUTE and CODE are placeholders that should be replaced with compute and code numbers (e.g. for compute_70 and sm_70 COMPUTE and CODE should be replaced with 70. Default is Auto. For a more detailed explanation of this option see the ARCHITECTURES specification list section in the documentation of the CudaArchitectureSelector CMake module.

For example, to build everything (in debug mode), use:

mkdir build; cd build
cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DDEVEL_TOOLS=ON \
      -DBUILD_TESTS=ON -DBUILD_REFERENCE=ON -DBUILD_OMP=ON -DBUILD_CUDA=ON  ..
make

NOTE: Currently, the only verified CMake generator is Unix Makefiles. Other generators may work, but are not officially supported.

You need to compile ginkgo with -DBUILD_TESTS=ON option to be able to run the tests. Use the following command inside the build folder to run all tests:

make test

The output should contain several lines of the form:

     Start  1: path/to/test
 1/13 Test  #1: path/to/test .............................   Passed    0.01 sec

To run only a specific test and see more details results (e.g. if a test failed) run the following from the build folder:

./path/to/test

where path/to/test is the path returned by make test.

To install Ginkgo into the specified folder, execute the following command in the build folder

make install

If the installation prefix (see CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX) is not writable for your user, e.g. when installing Ginkgo system-wide, it might be necessary to prefix the call with sudo.

Refer to ABOUT-LICENSING.md for details.