Re: [Boost-users] Installing Boost.MPI [bjam]

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Installing Boost.MPI [bjam]
From: Raymond Wan (rwan_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-10-29 22:55:15

Hi John,

John Phillips wrote:
> Raymond Wan wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I need some help with building Boost.MPI.  My system is a Debian testing
>> (lenny) system and I'm following the instructions at [lenny uses 1.35
>> and not 1.36]:
>>
>> ... [snip]
>>
>> Firstly, I'm not sure if I have everything installed...  But I also
>> don't know what the "top-level Boost directory" is.  I've tried these
>> locations:
>>
>> /usr/share/boost-build/
>> /usr/share/boost-build/build/
>> /usr/share/boost-build/tools/   [it had an mpi.jam file in it]
>> /usr/include/boost/
>>
>>
>   Ray,
>
>   I think your trouble is with the "top level directory." It is the 
> directory that holds the initial boost download. It has things in it 
> like a directory called "boost" (that holds the actual code for the 
> libraries), one called "doc" (that holds a few documents, but not most 
> of them), one called "lib" (that holds most of the documentation and 
> examples for the libraries), and most importantly the top level 
> jamfile for bjam to create boost libraries. That is where you need to 
> be when you run bjam to make the MPI library. The rest sounds like it 
> is probably fine, and we can look at it more closely if this doesn't 
> work.

Thanks for the tip!  I did more searching and as I installed from the 
official Debian packages, there doesn't seem to be a directory structure 
like this.  i.e., documentation is in /usr/share/doc,  it seems.   I 
guess this is standard for Debian packages.

Anyway, I thought I'd Google more as maybe I'm missing a package.  As it 
turns out, as late as July 2008, someone has reported a bug [in the 
libboost1.35-dev package, for anyone interested] that says the Jamfiles 
are missing.  :-(  Maybe something further up (i.e., Debian unstable) 
might have it, but I don't think I want to be using anything from 
"unstable" with my limited knowledge. 

Is it terribly hard to download Boost 1.35 [again, because that is what 
Debian testing is using], take the Jamfile and edit it for my purposes 
(but not get it "perfect" enough for distributing to someone else)?  I 
downloaded 1.36 and am looking at the Jamfile [I see what you mean 
now...if I had downloaded the source, the Jamfile just jumps out at 
you...can't miss it] -- looks difficult, but not impossible.  But I'm 
sure there's plenty of non-Debian-specific information out there on how 
to do this.

Or maybe I should just go with installing from source into a separate 
directory.  This latter option seems easiest right now, I guess...

Thanks a lot for your help, John!

Ray

PS:  Link to the bug report -- 
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=490380