Rocketcalc.com

BLACS (Basic Linear Algebra Communication Subprograms) provides a message passing interface to linear algebra oriented applications. The BLACS interface makes linear algebra applications more portable and easier to program in distributed memory environments. BLACS consists of a kernel comparable to BLAS routines but which run on various platforms. Well-known programs that use BLACS are ScaLAPACK and PARPACK.

The notation denotes a variable (such as directory name, file name, user name, etc.) that user has to substitute.

If a backslash (\) appears in a shell command, then it should be treated as a line continuation, i.e., it could be ignored if the user types in the shell command.

ROCKETCALC provides a shell script (along with source code) that installs BLACS. The following are the steps to install BLACS using the shell script.

Download the file blacs-1.1-1-rocketcalc.tar.bz2.
Unpack the tarball file:
tar jxf blacs-1.1-1-rocketcalc.tar.bz2
This will create directory blacs-1.1-1-rocketcalc.
Change directory to blacs-1.1-1-rocketcalc:
cd blacs-1.1-1-rocketcalc
Become root:
su
The user has to enter the root password. This step is not necessary. A regular user may install BLACS.
The user should move (or delete) old BLACS installation if he/she is planning to install it in the same location. The shell script will install BLACS in
/blacs/1.1
The default value for is /usr/local.
Run the installation script:
./blacsinstall
This script will ask the user few questions and then will compile and install BLACS.