Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 12:19:32 +0100 (BST)
From: Jose Marin <jose@ma.hw.ac.uk>
To: lwn@eklektix.com
Subject: Intel BLAS, LAPACK & FFT


Hi guys,

Here"s something important that was discussed in comp.lang.fortran last
week (I"ll re-cap). Intel provides assembler-tuned, highly optimized
numerical libraries for the most common linear algebra and DSP
number-crunching tasks: BLAS, LAPACK, and FFT (and related DSP ops). The
problem is, these are released only for Windows -- what else. 

People were griping about this, not only from the Linux camp but also from
OS/2. I still don't understand why they keep these libraries so "secret"
(no way they'd release the assembler source). Well, there's partial relief
at least for Linux users, since they're releasing finally a Linux version
of the library. In binary form, though :-(

It all forms part of the supercomputer project (Intel ASCI Option Red) at
Sandia labs. All info and the libs themselves can be obtained from: 

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~ghenry/distrib/

(And the libs should be referred to as "ASCI Red Pentium Pro BLAS 1.1a",
etc., and not "Intel BLAS" or similar -- although they are done by a group
of 4 Intel scientists working for this project at Sandia).


--

Since this binary-only thing does not go very well with us free software
enthusiasts, it is still very worthwhile to encourage continuing the work
that Manuel Kessler initiated:

http://cip.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de/~mlkessle/blas1.html

He set out to rewrite the BLAS in Pentium-optimized assembler from
scratch, and release it as GPL code. I think this deserves more publicity
so that more assembler gurus join in (I wish I could). 

--


Mind you, this whole business about "BLAS", "LAPACK", "FFT", and so on
might sound very arcane or obscure, but having these optimized numerical
libraries would benefit *many* codes. Obvious candidates are math programs
(at last we'll have Linux-matlab beat windows-matlab!), but other
less-scientific-oriented programs like GIMP, POV, etc could also benefit
greatly.


Jose L Marin



=============================================================================
Jose L. Marin                                   jose@ma.hw.ac.uk
Dept of Maths                                   marin@wanda.unizar.es
Heriot-Watt University
Edinburgh EH14 4AS, U.K.
Phone: +44 131 4513230
Fax: +44 131 451 3249

Former address:  Dept. de Fisica de la Materia Condensada
                 Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Zaragoza
                 50009 Zaragoza, SPAIN
=============================================================================