Installing software in your home directory: Difference between revisions

'''Read the installation instructions that accompany the software.''' These instructions often fall into one of the classes described below.

Sometimes this will work exactly as prescribed, but sometimes it will fail at <code>make install</code> because the package expects to be able to write to <code>/usr/local</code> or some other shared area in the file system. It will always fail if <code>sudo make install</code> is attempted, because <code>sudo</code> is a request for "root" or administrator privileges. The usual solution is to supply a <code>--prefix</code> flag at the <code>configure</code> step, to direct the installation to go to the directory of your choice, ''e.g.:''

* all binaries under <code>/cvmfs/soft.computecanada.ca</code> use what is called a RUNPATH, which means that the directories for the runtime libraries that these binaries depend on are put inside the binary. That means it is generally '''not''' necessary to use <code>$LD_LIBRARY_PATH</code>. In fact, <code>$LD_LIBRARY_PATH</code> overrides this runpath and you should '''not''' set that environment variable to locations such as <code>/usr/lib64</code> or <code>$EBROOTGENTOO/lib64</code>. Many binaries will no longer work if you attempt this.

* if all else fails you can use <code>module --force purge</code> to remove the CVMFS environment. You are then left with a bare-bones CentOS-7 installation without modules. This may help for special situations such as compiling GCC yourself or using custom toolchains such as the [http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~townsend/static.php?ref=mesasdk MESA SDK]. Purging modules would then '''only''' be necessary when you compile such software; the modules can be reloaded when running it.