Overview

Instructor(s): Dr. Thang Ha

Time: Friday, November 21, 2025 10:00AM-12:30PM CT

Location: Blocker 220

Prerequisite(s): Active HPRC account,

Have you ever found a GitHub repo that has some features relevant to your research but you could not follow the instructions to make it work on HPRC Linux supercomputers? Maybe you tried to follow the instructions to set up a some Python/Conda environment for such a repo and ended up locked out of your account because you filled up your home storage quota limit? Ever tried to install an R library package or compile a source code in C/C++/Fortran and bumped into errors involving missing libraries that you don't have sudo permission to install? If you encounter any of these issues, this short course is for you!

By learning to set up environments for Python/R scripts and C/C++/Fortran software compilation on HPRC, participants will be able to install the libraries and packages required for their R and Python scripts (e.g. PyTorch), compile source codes into executable programs, and run these scripts and programs on TAMU computing clusters. These skills will be relevant for researchers in a variety of fields, including those involved with AI/ML, molecular dynamics simulations, and materials science.

Course Materials

The presentation slides will be available as downloadable PDF files.

Learning Objectives

In this course, participants will:

• Set up a Python virtual environment containing PyTorch, which is a widely-used python package for many common AI/ML workloads, such as Large Language Models (LLMs), using HPRC's in-house Python virtual environment manager "ModuLair", which is based on Python venv.
• Set up a Conda/Mamba environment, in case a given Python environment requires Conda and/or is too complicated to set up using Python venv.
• Set up an environment for running R scripts using HPRC's in-house R project environment management and software module "R_tamu".
• Set up a software compilation environment using a FOSS (GNU) toolchain and/or an Intel toolchain, compile source code into executable programs, and write and submit a SLURM job script to run those compiled programs on HPRC.

Note: Be sure to bring your computer, log in to Grace, and complete the tasks and exercises along with the instructor.