Goal

LAPack and BLAS are powerfull linear algebra libraries written in fortran. Here I go over installing and using them in linux. First we need to install BLAS, and then we can install LAPack.

How to do it?

  • Download the latest version of BLAS
  • Open a terminal and go to the directory where you have saved it.
    • $ tar -xvf blas-3.6.0.tgz # create BLAS subdirectory
    • $ cd BLAS-3.6.0
    • $ gfortran -O3 -c *.f # compiling
    • $ ar cr libblas.a *.o # creates libblas.a
    • $ sudo cp ./libblas.a /usr/local/lib/
  • So far we have installed BLAS. Now download the latest version of LAPack.
  • Open a terminal and go to the directory where you have saved it.
    • $ tar -xvf ./lapack-3.6.0.tgz # create LAPack subdirectory
    • $ cd lapack-3.6.0
  • Now you need to change the directory of BLAS in the file "make.inc.example". Open this file and find the line that reads
    • BLASLIB = ../../librefblas.a
  • and change it to :
    • BLASLIB = /usr/local/libblas.a
  • Save this file as "make.inc" and then run make:
    • $ make
  • $ sudo cp ./liblapack.a /usr/local/lib/
  • compile your code using "-lblas -llapack" flags.
  • Voila!!
    • -------------------------------------------
  • If you get the error "recipe for target 'znep.out' failed" during installation of LAPack, run the command "$ ulimit -s unlimited". See this for more information. Thanks to Prof. Becker for bringing this up to my attention.