Proposals:Sparse Linear Solvers

The Problem

ITK requires functionalities for solving large sparse linear systems.

The current solution obtained though VXL must be replaced because it relies internally on code whose Copyright is held by ACM, and is subject to a license that precludes commercial use.

Previous Review

Tom Vercauteren previously gathered the following list of options.

ITK_Release_4.0#3rd_Party_Libraries

Options

Comparative Table

Name	License	Size	Support Sparse	Language	Coverage	Valgrind	CMakeified
SuiteSparse	LGPL / GPL				Unknown	Unknown
TAUCS	MIT			C	Unknown	Unknown
SuperLU	BSD				Unknown	Unknown
Eigen	LGPL v3 (headers only)			C++	Unknown	Unknown	Yes
Boost Numeric Bindings					Unknown	Unknown
ARPACK++		Templates	Yes	C++	Unknown	No
ARPACK	New BSD	1.5 Mb	Yes	FORTRAN	Unknown	No
MUMPS	Public Domain	11 Mb			Unknown	Unknown
lapack	BSD	86 Mb		Fortran	??	Unknown	Yes
clapack	BSD	22 Mb	??	C	80%	Unknown	Yes
PLASMA	BSD	13 Mb		C + FORTRAN			Yes
OpenNL	?, BSD	2.8 Mb	Yes	C, C++, CUDA	Unknown	Unknown	Yes

SuiteSparse

• License: LGPL
• Home: http://www.cise.ufl.edu/research/sparse/SuiteSparse

TAUCS

• License: MIT
• Home: http://code.google.com/p/taucs/

SuperLU

• License: BSD
• Home: http://crd.lbl.gov/~xiaoye/SuperLU/

Eigen

• License: LGPL
• Home: http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

MUMPS

• License:
• http://graal.ens-lyon.fr/MUMPS/
• Requires
  • BLAS

Boost Numeric Bindings

• License: seems to be BSD (but links to MUMPS, UMFPack, so better check with them directly)
• http://mathema.tician.de/software/boost-bindings

ARPACK++

• C++ Template API for sparse matrix containers and API to ARPACK FORTRAN library solvers
• License: ??
• http://www.ime.unicamp.br/~chico/arpack++/

ARPACK

• to solve large scale eigenvalue problems
• License: New BSD
• http://www.caam.rice.edu/software/ARPACK/

lapack

• http://icl.cs.utk.edu/lapack-forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1746
• Source Code
  • svn co http://icl.cs.utk.edu/svn/lapack-dev/lapack/trunk
  • svn co http://icl.cs.utk.edu/svn/scalapack-dev
  • svn co https://icl.cs.utk.edu/svn/lapack-dev/lapack/trunk lapack
• Dashboard: http://my.cdash.org/index.php?project=LAPACK
• Main maintainer Site:
  • Innovative Computing Laboratory
  • University of Tennessee from Denver, Colorado

clapack

• Dashboard: http://my.cdash.org/index.php?project=CLAPACK
• License:
• Source code release: http://www.netlib.org/clapack/clapack-3.2.1-CMAKE.tgz
• Home page: https://icl.eecs.utk.edu/
• Repository: https://icl.eecs.utk.edu/svn/lapack-dev/clapack/trunk
  • Closed to the public ??
  • The code is generated from the FORTRAN version of lapack. The generation process is not under source control.
• Main maintainer Site:
  • Innovative Computing Laboratory
  • University of Tennessee from Denver, Colorado

PLASMA

• Home Page: http://icl.cs.utk.edu/plasma/index.html
• License: BSD

OpenNL

• Home Page: http://alice.loria.fr/index.php/software/4-library/23-opennl.html
• License: need to be clarified, VTK like.