# Building Paraview through spack
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/building-paraview-through-spack/7901
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [September 1, 2021, 11:57am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/building-paraview-through-spack/7901 "2021-09-01T11:57:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@bastian](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/bastian)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2021, 11:57am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/building-paraview-through-spack/7901/1 "2021-09-01T11:57:58Z")
Has anyone ever installed paraview for off-screen GPU rendering through spack?
I’d love to learn how to do that and was unable to find documentation for the build parameters,
because
> [@Failing to build ParaView on the Theta supercomputer](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/failing-to-build-paraview-on-the-theta-supercomputer/6309/2):
>
> Previous installs we’ve done there used ParaView Superbuild, because spack was in early stages. We should move to spack though.
All I found was
- [https://spack.readthedocs.io/en/latest/package\_list.html#paraview](https://spack.readthedocs.io/en/latest/package_list.html#paraview)
- [spack/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/paraview/package.py at develop · spack/spack · GitHub](https://github.com/spack/spack/blob/develop/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/paraview/package.py)
---
### Author:  [@jcbowden](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/jcbowden)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2021, 12:42pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/building-paraview-through-spack/7901/2 "2021-09-14T12:42:03Z")
Sorry, I was going to comment, however my experience is with osmesa rendring, not off-screen GPU rendering.
---
### Author:  [@danlipsa](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/danlipsa)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2021, 1:14pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/building-paraview-through-spack/7901/3 "2021-09-14T13:14:27Z")
I know we’ve been working on it but only for the new spack concretizer.
[@Chuck Atkins](mailto:chuck.atkins@kitware.com) What is the status of that work?
---
### Author:  [@jfavre](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/jfavre)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2022, 3:48pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/building-paraview-through-spack/7901/4 "2022-11-30T15:48:57Z")
I have also been trying to build 5.11 with spack for Cray systems, where no X windows is available. My current cmake flags (working and already installed in production) use, for GPU systems
```auto
-DVTK_OPENGL_HAS_EGL=ON -DVTK_USE_X=OFF
```
or for nodes without GPUs
```auto
-DVTK_OPENGL_HAS_OSMESA=ON -DVTK_USE_X=OFF -DOPENGL_gl_LIBRARY= -DOPENGL_glu_LIBRARY=
```
Now the current paraview package on the spack repo does not include any VTK\_OPENGL\_HAS\_EGL option. Is that in the works?
---
### Author:  [@Ryan\_Krattiger](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Ryan_Krattiger)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2022, 4:41pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/building-paraview-through-spack/7901/5 "2022-11-30T16:41:46Z")
Currently Spack does not support the EGL frontend. This is something that has been asked for a couple of times but required changes to how Spack handled OpenGL frontend/backend. These changes have started, but adding EGL support requires additional work to get it working correctly across numerous packages.
A spec you could try that I have used before, it is assuming that you are only building ParaView and nothing else.
```bash
spack install "paraview +osmesa ~qt
^mesa +osmesa +llvm
^llvm ~clang ~flang ~lldb ~lld ~libcxx ~gold +llvm_dylib"
```
The best that is currently available is OSMesa. If you use this backend you will also want to specify `mesa +osmesa +llvm`. The LLVM extensions provide needed acceleration to make CPU rendering tolerable.
To help speed up the LLVM build, you should turn off most of the stuff it tries to provide. I have used `llvm ~clang ~flang ~lldb ~lld ~libcxx ~gold +llvm_dylib`
---
### Author:  [@Kenneth](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Kenneth)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2024, 5:01pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/building-paraview-through-spack/7901/6 "2024-11-23T17:01:42Z")
Hi Ryan, I know I have succeeded with your tips in the past but this time on 5.13.1 I am getting
```auto
spack install "paraview +osmesa ~qt
^mesa +osmesa +llvm
^llvm ~clang ~flang ~lldb ~lld ~libcxx ~gold +llvm_dylib"
==> Error: No such variant {'osmesa'} for spec: 'paraview+osmesa~qt ^llvm~clang~flang~gold~libcxx~lld~lldb+llvm_dylib ^mesa+llvm+osmesa
```
I am trying this is sub-steps as well
```auto
spack install mesa +osmesa ~qt
==> Error: No such variant {'qt'} for spec: 'mesa+osmesa~qt'
```
but one step lower does work
```auto
spack install mesa +osmesa
```
succeeds but it looks like the paraview through spack does not support mesa???
````auto
spack info paraview
CMakePackage: paraview
Description:
ParaView is an open-source, multi-platform data analysis and
visualization application. This package includes the Catalyst in-situ
library for versions 5.7 and greater, otherwise use the catalyst
package.
Homepage: https://www.paraview.org
Preferred version:
5.13.1 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.13/ParaView-v5.13.1.tar.xz
Safe versions:
master [git] https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview.git on branch master
5.13.1 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.13/ParaView-v5.13.1.tar.xz
5.13.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.13/ParaView-v5.13.0.tar.xz
5.12.1 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.12/ParaView-v5.12.1.tar.xz
5.12.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.12/ParaView-v5.12.0.tar.xz
5.11.2 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.11/ParaView-v5.11.2.tar.xz
5.11.1 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.11/ParaView-v5.11.1.tar.xz
5.11.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.11/ParaView-v5.11.0.tar.xz
5.10.1 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.10/ParaView-v5.10.1.tar.xz
5.10.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.10/ParaView-v5.10.0.tar.xz
5.9.1 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.9/ParaView-v5.9.1.tar.xz
5.9.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.9/ParaView-v5.9.0.tar.xz
5.8.1 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.8/ParaView-v5.8.1.tar.xz
5.8.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.8/ParaView-v5.8.0.tar.xz
5.7.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.7/ParaView-v5.7.0.tar.xz
5.6.2 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.6/ParaView-v5.6.2.tar.xz
5.6.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.6/ParaView-v5.6.0.tar.gz
5.5.2 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.5/ParaView-v5.5.2.tar.gz
5.5.1 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.5/ParaView-v5.5.1.tar.gz
5.5.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.5/ParaView-v5.5.0.tar.gz
5.4.1 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.4/ParaView-v5.4.1.tar.gz
5.4.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.4/ParaView-v5.4.0.tar.gz
5.3.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.3/ParaView-v5.3.0.tar.gz
5.2.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.2/ParaView-v5.2.0.tar.gz
5.1.2 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.1/ParaView-v5.1.2.tar.gz
5.0.1 http://www.paraview.org/files/v5.0/ParaView-v5.0.1-source.tar.gz
4.4.0 http://www.paraview.org/files/v4.4/ParaView-v4.4.0-source.tar.gz
Deprecated versions:
None
Variants:
advanced_debug [false] false, true
Enable all other debug flags beside build_type, such as VTK_DEBUG_LEAK
build_edition [canonical] canonical, catalyst, catalyst_rendering,
core, rendering
Build editions include only certain modules. Editions are listed in
decreasing order of size.
build_system [cmake] cmake
Build systems supported by the package
cdi [false] false, true
Enable CDI support
cuda [false] false, true
Build with CUDA
development_files [true] false, true
Install include files for Catalyst or plugins support
examples [false] false, true
Build examples
eyedomelighting [false] false, true
Enable Eye Dome Lighting feature
fortran [false] false, true
Enable Fortran support
hdf5 [false] false, true
Use external HDF5
kits [true] false, true
Use module kits
mpi [true] false, true
Enable MPI support
nvindex [false] false, true
Enable the pvNVIDIAIndeX plugin
opengl2 [true] false, true
Enable OpenGL2 backend
pagosa [false] false, true
Build the pagosa adaptor
qt [false] false, true
Enable Qt (gui) support
raytracing [false] false, true
Enable Raytracing support
rocm [false] false, true
Enable ROCm support
shared [true] false, true
Builds a shared version of the library
tbb [false] false, true
Enable multi-threaded parallelism with TBB
use_vtkm [default] default, off, on
Build VTK-m with ParaView by setting PARAVIEW_USE_VTKM=ON,OFF.
"default" lets the build_edition make the decision. "on" or "off" will
always override the build_edition.
visitbridge [false] false, true
Enable VisItBridge support
when +rocm
amdgpu_target [none] none, gfx1010, gfx1011, gfx1012, gfx1013,
gfx1030, gfx1031, gfx1032, gfx1033,
gfx1034, gfx1035, gfx1036, gfx1100,
gfx1101, gfx1102, gfx1103, gfx701,
gfx801, gfx802, gfx803, gfx900,
gfx900:xnack-, gfx902, gfx904, gfx906,
gfx906:xnack-, gfx908, gfx908:xnack-,
gfx909, gfx90a, gfx90a:xnack+,
gfx90a:xnack-, gfx90c, gfx940, gfx941,
gfx942
AMD GPU architecture
when +cuda
cuda_arch [none] none, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 21, 30, 32, 35,
37, 50, 52, 53, 60, 61, 62, 70, 72, 75,
80, 86, 87, 89, 90, 90a
CUDA architecture
when build_system=cmake
build_type [Release] Debug, MinSizeRel, RelWithDebInfo,
Release
CMake build type
generator [ninja] none
the build system generator to use
when build_system=cmake ^cmake@3.9:
ipo [false] false, true
CMake interprocedural optimization
when @5.6:
python [false] false, true
Enable Python support
when @5.8:
adios2 [false] false, true
Enable ADIOS2 support
when @5.9:
fides [false] false, true
Enable Fides support
when @5.9:+python
openpmd [false] false, true
Enable openPMD support (w/ ADIOS2/HDF5)
when @5.7:
catalyst [false] false, true
Enable Catalyst 1
when @5.10:
libcatalyst [false] false, true
Enable Catalyst 2 (libcatalyst) implementation
Build Dependencies:
adios2 freetype libcatalyst netcdf-c py-mpi4py
boost gl libogg ninja py-numpy
bzip2 glew libpng nlohmann-json python
cdi gmake libtheora openimagedenoise python-venv
cli11 hdf5 libtiff openpmd-api qt
cmake hip libxml2 ospray silo
cuda hsa-rocr-dev libxt pegtl tbb
double-conversion jpeg llvm-amdgpu proj xz
eigen jsoncpp lz4 protobuf zlib-api
expat kokkos mpi pugixml
Link Dependencies:
adios2 freetype libcatalyst mpi qt
boost gl libogg netcdf-c silo
bzip2 glew libpng nlohmann-json tbb
cdi hdf5 libtheora openimagedenoise xz
cli11 hip libtiff ospray zlib-api
cuda hsa-rocr-dev libxml2 pegtl
double-conversion jpeg libxt proj
eigen jsoncpp llvm-amdgpu protobuf
expat kokkos lz4 pugixml
Run Dependencies:
openpmd-api py-mpi4py py-pandas python-venv
py-matplotlib py-numpy python
Licenses:
Apache-2.0
```
````
---
### Author:  [@jfavre](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/jfavre)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2024, 3:10pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/building-paraview-through-spack/7901/7 "2024-11-26T15:10:57Z")
I have recently done an EGL build of v5.13.1 for our GraceHopper cluster. This is my build command
```auto
spack env create paraview-gh-ospray2
spack env activate paraview-gh-ospray2
spack -e paraview-gh-ospray2 add paraview+python+mpi+hdf5+nvindex+tbb+adios2+raytracing+libcatalyst+opengl2+fortran+cdi~qt+shared build_system=cmake build_type=Release ^[v
irtuals=gl] egl
spack -e paraview-gh-ospray2 concretize -f
spack -e paraview-gh-ospray2 install
```