ALPS Installation on Mac/Linux from Sources

For most cases, it is preferred to install ALPS from Binaries. However, for more user control and configuration, installing from Sources could be a better approach.

Install Required Dependencies

ALPS relies on a handful of external libraries. Choose one MPI and one BLAS provider that fit your system:

Dependency	Minimum version	Packages
HDF5	1.10.0	`libhdf5-dev`
CMake	2.8	`cmake`
C++ Compiler	GCC 10.5.0 & Clang 13.0.1	`build-essential`
Boost	1.76 (1.87 if NumPy >= 2.0 / Python >= 3.13)	see below
MPI	OpenMPI 4.0 or MPICH 4.0	`libopenmpi-dev` / `libmpich-dev`
BLAS	0.3	`libopenblas-dev`
Python	3.9	python.org

Ubuntu / Debian / WSL

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install build-essential cmake \
                 libhdf5-dev \
                 libopenblas-dev \
                 libopenmpi-dev openmpi-bin # or: libpich-dev mpich

# download and install Boost v1.81.0:
$ wget https://archives.boost.io/release/1.81.0/source/boost_1_81_0.tar.gz
$ tar -xzf boost_1_81_0.tar.gz

# install Python libs:
$ pip install numpy scipy # python libraries 
# or 
$ python3 -m pip install numpy scipy

macOS (via Homebrew)

$ brew update
$ brew install cmake hdf5 \
              openblas open-mpi # or: mpich

# download and install Boost:
$ brew install boost

# install Python libs:
$ pip3 install numpy scipy

Verify Dependencies

$ gcc -v #  must be >= 10.5.0
$ cmake --version # must be >= 3.18
$ mpirun --version # OpenMPI 4.0 or MPICH 4

Download and Build

We can now proceed to download and build the ALPS library.
In the snippet below, please replace /path/to/install/directory with the actual directory on your system you want ALPS to be installed.

$ git clone https://github.com/alpsim/ALPS alps-src
$ cmake -S alps-src -B alps-build                                     \
       -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=</path/to/install/dir>                  \
       -DBoost_SRC_DIR=</directory/with/boost/sources>/boost_1_81_0  \
       -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="-DBOOST_NO_AUTO_PTR                         \
       -DBOOST_FILESYSTEM_NO_CXX20_ATOMIC_REF"
$ cmake --build alps-build -j 8
$ cmake --build alps-build -t test

Video Walkthrough

Troubleshooting

Need a different MPI or BLAS?
Substitute the package names above with your cluster’s module (e.g. Intel MKL/OneAPI, AMD AOCL, IBM ESSL, etc). Cmake is a build system that will find the locations of the above packages and generate compilation instructions in Makefiles.
Python errors
Ensure you are using Python 3.9 at a minimum. Note: some installations (e.g. macOS) use pip3 instead of pip. Refer to the python website for support in installing the correct version.
MPI mismatch?
Ensure that CMake is using the same MPI version as mpirun --version
Boost errors
We have tested building ALPS with Boost versions 1.76.0 through 1.81.0 (please refere to the build notes for the combination of supported boost versions with different compilers and Python version)

Build notes

The following combinations of Boost, Python and the C++ compiler have been tested:

GCC 10.5.0, Python 3.9.19 and Boost 1.76.0
GCC 11.4.0, Python 3.10.14 and Boost 1.81.0, 1.86.0
GCC 12.3.0, Python 3.10.14 and Boost 1.81.0, 1.86.0
Clang 13.0.1, Python 3.10.14 and Boost 1.81.0, 1.86.0
Clang 14.0.0, Python 3.10.14 and Boost 1.81.0, 1.86.0
Clang 15.0.7, Python 3.10.14 and Boost 1.81.0, 1.86.0

ALPS has been tested on ARM-based MacOS systems using both the default compiler and the Homebrew gcc compiler (with Boost 1.86.0). On MacOS >=14.6 in order to succesfully build ALPS using Homebrew gcc compiler, the following environment variable have to be set:

export SDKROOT=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.sdk/

If you have a non-standard installation location of the dependent packages installed in step 1, cmake will fail to find the package. ALPS uses the standard cmake mechanism (FindXXX.cmake) to find packages. The following pointers may help:

For MPI: Follow the instructions on cmake with mpi
For BLAS: Follow the instructions on cmake with BLAS
For HDF5: Follow the instructions on cmake with HDF5

After successfully building the code, you will need to install it. The install location is specified with -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/install/directory as a cmake command during configuration. Alternatively, it can be changed by explicitly providing a new installation path to the --prefix parameter during the installation phase (see cmake manual).
To install the code run:

$ cmake --install alps-build

Your install directory will be created; if everything was successful you can find ALPS executables such as mc or fulldiag under the bin directory of your installation path.

ALPS Installation on Mac/Linux from Binaries