Problem installing lsst_sims 2.8.0

Support
#1

Hello,
I am trying to install lsst_sims 2.8.0 on Scientific Linux 6.9 using eups but it is failing at the healpy stage. From the healpy build.log:

checking for CFITSIO... yes
checking for ffgnrwll in -lcfitsio... no
configure: error: could not find the cfitsio library

I have built the cfitsio library from source (there didn’t seem to be a package available for SL6), installed it in /usr and ensured that it is visible to pkg-config but I’m still getting the same error. I’m installing on top of lsst_distrib v15_0 also installed via eups, in case that makes a difference. Anyone know what might be wrong?
Thanks.

#2

Hi James,

When you say you installed cfitsio from source, do you mean that you installed the LSST-distributed cfitsio package, or you installed something from hand? Usually, when I use eups distrib install to install any of our software, the first thing it does is install cfitsio for me. If you installed cfitsio by hand, it is possible that you got an incompatible version.

– Scott

#3

Specifically, we ship the LSST stack with cfitsio version 3.360. I do not know if we expect the stack to be compatible with the most recent version of cfitsio.

#4

Thanks for responding. You are right about cfitsio being installed with the LSST software. I didn’t notice at first that it was there so when I saw the error I tried installing it manually from source, which didn’t help.
I solved this problem eventually by reinstalling lsst_sims on top of lsst_distrib w_2018_19 instead of v15_0. It is still building now but it has successfully passed the healpy step so hopefully it will be OK now.

#5

Good.

As a rule, lsst_sims is never going to be compatible with the latest stable DM release (e.g. v15.0). Our release schedule is too fast. We always build lsst_sims on top of recent weeklies. I’m surprised eups distrib install didn’t automatically try to update your lsst_distrib packages to w_2018_19.

Regardless: the installation instructions

https://confluence.lsstcorp.org/display/SIM/Catalogs+and+MAF

will tell you which weekly you need to use (see step 2 under “Installing From Source”).