Python manual package manager—a package manager written in Python for manually installing a compiled stack#

Introduction#

Python manual package manager is a package manager written in Python for manually installing a compiled stack. Before you proceed, you should know that for typical usage, conda (and its friends mamba/micromamba) should be enough for the purpose. pmpm built on top of conda which also compile some Python packages locally.

Goal:

  • Custom compilation of some packages, possibly for optimization such as -march and -mtune which is beyond what conda offers.

  • Provide fast re-compile after some small local changes, suitable for development.

Approaches:

  • conda_install: Both the conda provided stack and the compiled stack from pmpm are in the same prefix, this makes activating an environment seamless. It is achieved by cleanly compile an environment using the conda provided stack only, including compilers.

  • system_install: The conda provided stack and the compiled stack from pmpm has a different prefix. This makes the 2 completely separate, where the compiled stack can uses the host compilers. This is useful for example when the vendor provided MPI compilers are needed. This also has more points of failure, as we can’t completely control what is in the host environment. pmpm only serves as automation for reproducibility. But you probably need to modify how pmpm behaves on different host, and you probably need to install packages from the OS package manager.

Alternative approach:

  • You can create a conda recipe and use conda-build and tweak from there for customization. The only downside probably is the time it takes to re-compile after modifications.

Installation#

pip install pmpm

Development#

git clone https://github.com/ickc/python-pmpm.git
cd python-pmpm
conda activate
mamba env create -f environment.yml
conda activate pmpm
pip install -e .

Usage#

Use one of the example config in this repository:

pmpm conda_install "$HOME/pmpm-test" --file examples/....yml

Design#

When installing from a YAML file such as those given in the examples/ directory, pmpm behaves as a superset of conda/mamba with an extra _pmpm key in the YAML configuration. pmpm will compile packages available in pmpm.packages after the conda environment is created, as defined in the YAML file.