[Users] New Cactus Computational Toolkit Release (4.3.0)

[Frank Loeffler]

We are pleased to announce the 4.3.0 release of the Cactus Computational
Toolkit, an open source problem solving environment designed for
scientists and engineers.

This release includes, among other things, improvements to the Cactus
flesh (see below for details), new utility thorns, and changed and
additions to the external library thorns. In addition, bug fixes
accumulated since the previous release have been included.

Cactus is an open source problem solving environment designed for
scientists and engineers. Its modular structure easily enables parallel
computation across different architectures and collaborative code
development between different groups. Cactus originated in the academic
research community, where it was developed and used over many years by a
large international collaboration of physicists and computational
scientists.

Cactus runs on many architectures. Applications, developed on standard
workstations or laptops, can be seamlessly run on clusters or
supercomputers. Cactus provides easy access to many cutting edge
software technologies being developed in the academic research
community.

The Cactus user community has created and is maintaining toolkits for
several research fields. The Einstein Toolkit addresses computational
relativistic astrophysics, supporting simulations of black holes,
neutron stars, and related systems.

For more information about using or contributing to the Cactus Computational Toolkit,
please visit our web pages at http://cactuscode.org.

The changes between this and the previous release include:

=== Larger changes since last release ===

* Almost all repositories moved from the Cactus subversion server to bitbucket,
  with the ExternalLibraries being the only exception. Taking
  this move as opportunity, some already existing thorns were moved to more
  appropriate arrangements.

* Cactus Flesh
  - While not a particular user-visible change, the Cactus version number was
    bumped to 4.3.0.
  - Thorns can specify versions for capabilities they provide, and thorns
    using them can depend on specific versions of those.
  - pthread support got moved into a thorn (ExternalLibraries/pthreads)
  - added support for an unlimited number of timelevels
  - Change default output filename format from implementation::groupname
    to implementation-groupname (parameter IOUtil::out_group_separator).
  - Piraha replaced parts of the old Cactus parser (but that should not
    be a user visible change).
  - Cactus complex number arithmetic functions are deprecated
  - Prevent Cactus from choking on very large parameter files
  - support linux-gnueabi architecture (e.g. Raspberry Pi)
  - check that providing function name is different from aliased
    function name
  - Drop explicit support for Fortran 77 in Cactus
  - Require C99 support
  - make: Don't require configuration name when only one is present

* External Libraries:
  - Delay build of external libraries so they can be 'made' in parallel.
  - HDF5: Enable fortran interface by default, disable C++ interface by
          default.

* New Components
  - CactusNumerical/LocalInterp2: a C++ drop-in replacement for
    LocalInterp
  - CactusNumerical/TestLocalInterp2: containing tests for LocalInterp2
  - CactusNumerical/SummationByParts
  - CactusUtils/SystemTopology
  - CactusUtils/MemSpeed
  - CactusUtils/NaNCatcher
  - CactusUtils/SystemStatistics
  - ExternalLibraries/PAPI
  - ExternalLibraries/libncurses
  - ExternalLibraries/libreadline
  - ExternalLibraries/pthreads

=== How to upgrade from 4.2.0 ===

To upgrade from the previous release, use GetComponents with the new thornlist
to check out the new version. Switching to the new branch is not possible for
most repositories due to repository moves.

See the [http://cactuscode.org/download/ Download] page on the Cactus
website for download instructions.

=== Remaining issues with this release ===

* Certain machines need to be configured specially in Simfactory because the
  remote directories cannot be determined automatically just from the user
  name. See the Machine notes below.

=== Machine notes ===

Supported (tested through the Einstein Toolkit) machines include:

- Default Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and MacOS installations
- Bethe
- Bluewaters
- Carver
- Comet
- Datura
- Edison
- Fermi
- Galileo
- Gordon
- Gullimin
- Hopper
- Nvidia
- Philip
- Queenbee 2
- Shelob
- Supermike II
- Stampede (CPU)
- Zwicky

* Stampede: defs.local.ini needs to have sourcebasedir = $WORK and basedir =
  $SCRATCH/simulations configured for this machine.  You need to determine
  $WORK and $SCRATCH by logging in to the machine.

All repositories participating in this release carry a branch
Cactus_4.3.0 marking this release.  These release branches will be
updated if severe errors are found.

The 4.3.0 Release Team
(2015-11-11)


Steven R. Brandt
Peter Diener
Roland Haas
Ian Hinder
Frank Löffler
Bruno C. Mundim
Erik Schnetter
Barry Wardell

November 11, 2015


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