[NLPL Task Force (A)] [uninett.no #196965] Tensorflow issues, pt. 2

[Stephan Oepen]

> <hrn at c7-8><~> python3
> .>>> import tensorflow
> ...
> ImportError: /lib64/libm.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.23' not found
> (required by
> /cluster/home/hrn/.local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/tensorflow/python/_pywrap_tensorflow_internal.so)
> 
> 
> GLIBC follows with the Linux kernel. In order to get a newer version
> of GLIBC the Linux kernel must be upgraded and this will involve
> upgrading all the software on Saga. We cannot do this. The problem is
> that the library mentioned in the error message has not been compiled
> on Saga. At the moment, I don't see how this problem can be solved.

oh, no, are we about to run up against these issues again, already in 
the first few months of the many years that Saga will be in production?!

it may seem as if newer versions of binary TensorFlow distributions 
(1.15.0 and 2.0.0) have mellowed their glibc requirements again, as the 
NLPL installations of those versions (on Saga) appear happy (and come 
from pre-compiled packages).

but sooner or later there will of course be a growing number of packages 
that need to be compiled locally, and eventually likely also some that 
will be hard to compile on Saga.

just for the record (for now :-), we had ended up creatively working 
around glibc requirements on the older Abel and Taito (in finland) 
systems by what one colleague called 'glibc gymnastics'; see:

http://wiki.nlpl.eu/index.php/Infrastructure/software/glibc

god helg!  oe