Chapel Prerequisites

Chapel is designed to be portable to a variety of systems and only requires software that is common on UNIX systems.

The following are prerequisites and assumptions about your environment for using Chapel:

  • You are using an environment that supports standard UNIX commands such as: cd, mkdir, rm, echo

  • You have a Bourne shell available at /bin/sh and env available at /usr/bin/env.

  • You have Python 2.7 or newer available as either python3 or python and that env can locate it.

  • You have access to gmake or a GNU-compatible version of make.

  • You have access to standard C and C++ compilers.

    • Building the Chapel compiler and bundled components requires C++14 and one of the following:

      • GCC 7.1 or newer

      • Clang 5.0 or newer

      • Apple Clang 9.3 or newer

    • C11 support, while not required, will enable faster atomic operations.

  • CMake is available and cmake runs version 3.13.4 or later.

  • The LLVM backend is now the default and it is easiest to use it with a system-wide installation of LLVM and clang. On Mac OS X, LLVM 14 and 15 are supported. On other platforms, LLVM and clang versions 11 through 15 are currently supported. If a system-wide installation of LLVM and clang with one of those versions is not available, you can use the bundled LLVM or disable LLVM support (see CHPL_LLVM).

In addition, several optional components have additional requirements:

  • Python 3.7 or newer is required if you want to use chpldoc, c2chapel, or Chapel’s test system. These additionally require python3-devel or the equivalent package; python3 and pip3 commands; and the venv Python package.

  • doxygen 1.8.17 or newer is required to build the complete documentation

  • m4 is required for building the bundled GMP

  • git is required for Mason, chapel’s package manager

  • pkg-config is required for the mason system subcommands

  • cmake 3.16 or newer is required to install chpl when choosing an installation with ./configure --chpl-home=/path/to/install

Installation

We have used the following commands to install the above prerequisites:

  • Alma Linux 8, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2:

    sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ m4 perl python3 python3-devel bash make gawk git cmake
sudo dnf install which diffutils
sudo dnf install llvm-devel clang clang-devel

  • Alpine 3.15, 3.17:

    sudo apk add gcc g++ m4 perl python3 python3-dev bash make gawk git cmake
sudo apk add llvm-dev clang-dev clang-static llvm-static

  • Alpine 3.18:

    sudo apk add gcc g++ m4 perl python3 python3-dev bash make gawk git cmake
sudo apk add llvm15-dev clang15-dev llvm15-static clang15-static

  • Amazon Linux 2:

    sudo yum install git gcc gcc-c++ m4 perl python tcsh bash gcc gcc-c++ perl python python-devel python-setuptools bash make gawk python3 which
sudo yum install wget tar openssl-devel
wget https://github.com/Kitware/CMake/releases/download/v3.25.1/cmake-3.25.1.tar.gz
tar xvzf cmake-3.25.1.tar.gz
cd cmake-3.25.1
./bootstrap
make
sudo make install
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/cmake cmake /usr/local/bin/cmake 1
sudo yum install llvm-devel clang clang-devel

  • Amazon Linux 2023:

    sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ m4 perl python3 python3-devel bash make gawk git cmake
sudo dnf install which diffutils
sudo dnf install clang clang-devel llvm-devel

  • Arch:

    sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S base-devel
sudo pacman -S cmake git python
sudo pacman -S llvm14 clang14

  • CentOS 7 Devtoolset 11:

    sudo yum install centos-release-scl
sudo yum install devtoolset-11-gcc*
sudo yum install epel-release
sudo scl enable devtoolset-11 bash
sudo echo source scl_source enable devtoolset-11 >> ~/.bashrc
sudo yum install git gcc gcc-c++ m4 perl tcsh bash gcc gcc-c++ perl python3 bash make gawk cmake3
sudo echo export CMAKE=cmake3 >> ~/.bashrc

  • CentOS Stream 8:

    sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ m4 perl python3 python3-devel bash make gawk git cmake
sudo dnf install which diffutils
sudo dnf install llvm-devel clang clang-devel

  • CentOS Stream 9:

    sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ m4 perl python3 python3-devel bash make gawk git cmake
sudo dnf install which diffutils
sudo dnf install llvm-devel-15.0.7 clang-15.0.7 clang-devel-15.0.7

  • Debian 10 “Buster”:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc g++ m4 perl python3 python3-dev bash make mawk git pkg-config cmake
sudo apt-get install llvm-13-dev llvm-13 llvm-13-tools clang-13 libclang-13-dev libclang-cpp13-dev libedit-dev

  • Debian 12 “Bookworm”, 11 “Bullseye”:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc g++ m4 perl python3 python3-dev bash make mawk git pkg-config cmake
sudo apt-get install llvm-dev llvm clang libclang-dev libclang-cpp-dev libedit-dev

  • Fedora 34, 35, 36, 37:

    sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ m4 perl python3 python3-devel bash make gawk git cmake
sudo dnf install which diffutils
sudo dnf install llvm-devel clang clang-devel

  • FreeBSD 12.2, 12.4, 13.1:

    sudo pkg install gcc m4 perl5 python3 bash gmake gawk git pkgconf cmake
sudo pkg install llvm13

  • FreeBSD 13.2:

    sudo pkg install gcc m4 perl5 python3 bash gmake gawk git pkgconf cmake
sudo pkg install llvm

  • OpenSuse Leap 15.3, 15.4, 15.5:

    sudo zypper install gcc gcc-c++ m4 perl python3 python3-devel bash make gawk git pkg-config cmake
sudo zypper install llvm-devel clang-devel clang

  • Rocky Linux 8, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2:

    sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ m4 perl python3 python3-devel bash make gawk git cmake
sudo dnf install which diffutils
sudo dnf install llvm-devel clang clang-devel

  • Ubuntu 20.04 “Focal Fossa”:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc g++ m4 perl python3 python3-dev bash make mawk git pkg-config cmake
sudo apt-get install llvm-12-dev llvm-12 llvm-12-tools clang-12 libclang-12-dev libclang-cpp12-dev libedit-dev

  • Ubuntu 22.04 “Jammy Jellyfish”:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc g++ m4 perl python3 python3-dev bash make mawk git pkg-config cmake
sudo apt-get install llvm-dev llvm clang libclang-dev libclang-cpp-dev libedit-dev

  • Ubuntu 22.10 “Kinetic Kudu”:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc g++ m4 perl python3 python3-dev bash make mawk git pkg-config cmake
sudo apt-get install llvm-14-dev llvm-14 llvm-14-tools clang-14 libclang-14-dev libclang-cpp14-dev libedit-dev