Getting the Fortran Compiler

[Colesky]

Forum,

Am I correct in understanding that I simply download the Fortran Compiler - it seems to be freeware. Correct?

I want to use to compile USER Subroutines in the FEM Code, Abaqus.

Any other help appreciated.

Colesky

[mecej4 · Accepted solution]

No, you cannot download "just the compiler". You need to check first if you have the prerequisites. On Windows, you may need to obtain and install a fairly recent version of Visual Studio from Microsoft.

Please see Ron Green's sticky post https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Fortran-Compiler/The-Easy-and-Fast-Way-to-Install-JUST-Fortran-with-Intel-oneAPI/m-p/1360571 , and Barbara_P_Intel's sticky post https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Fortran-Compiler/How-to-Use-Intel-s-Fortran-Compiler-with-Abaqus/td-p/1359606/ .

[Colesky]

Thank you very much for the reply.

Perhaps my question was not clear - is there anything to PURCHASE?

I get the impression I download things (maybe also the additional things you've linked to) - but I do not purchase from anyone.

is this correct?

[mecej4]

The compiler and tools are licensed for use without paying a fee, but my understanding is that free-to-use is not the same as "freeware".

If you wish, you can purchase a support subscription. 

[JohnNichols]

As @mecej4  has pointed out, the software is free to download and install on certain computers. Intel has made an economic decision that there are other economic reasons why it should only charge a certain class of people, in this case people who want instanteous support.  Not all people can afford instanteous support and not all are willing to pay.  So someone, makes an economic decision, which for any for-profit company must be to maximize long term returns ie longer than a stock market year, we cannot see the accounting sheets so we can only guess at the reasons.  

So why give a cheap license to @mecej4 or @FortranFan - these people can use any of the major Fortran compilers,  but one of the benefits to Intel is they answer a lot of questions on this site, for no cost to Intel.  But it has a community cost, @mecej4 is not free time, it has an economic cost to the community.   Example 1: Some one in a large company starts using the free compiler and then convinces the company to buy support, because that human bean is aware that there is support 24/7 on this site and if needed the paid version.  Example 2: A professor teaches a class Fortran, people in the class go onto buy Intel Fortran.  That is how I started in Fortran and I have only ever used the Intel or the ones that were used to create Intel Fortran.  I also like to hang out with the experts, the experts here are more interesting day to day than say the Fortran discourse site.  Those guys are passionate and I do not need that much passion this late in my fall of life. 

or like me now, I buy Intel NUCS, a lot of Intel NUCS and I get other people who want to use the software to buy them. I need the NUCS to run Intel Fortran.  One supports the other.   

There is a famous Urban legend that IBM sent the management consultants into their famous lab. After many months of study, they reported to management of the lab, we understand what everyone does, except the guy in the corner office, he sits and occasionally answers questions.  The management people smiled, he answers the questions no one else can, he saves us millions per year in unwasted effort by bright people who run into walls. 

Everyone runs into knowledge walls, even @mecej4 , not often but it must happen, so there is someone even @mecej4 asks questions of (and they are not me)  

My good friend who is a world class mathematician said that in their department they have a blackboard in the common room, on the blackboard they write unsolved problems, say a differential equation and then all the minds get to look at it.   He was laughing one day, a problem had been on the board for months, it had stopped a lot of world class mathematicians in their tracks, Adrien kept talking about the problem, then some young grad student from Oxford on a visit, walks in looks at the problem and writes down the solution, said it was obvious.  Some things are only obvious to some people and for some problems that group to whom it is obvious can be frightenly small.  

This is the Fortran common room, without doubt it solves interesting problems and like all good common rooms it serves terrible sherry, must be from the wrong side of the mountain in Jerez.  

So thank the Intel gods it is cheap, it is not free you have to pay for your computer and the electricity, but Intel takes it cut elsewhere.  

[Germán]

You are going to have to forgive me, I am coming from Linux and just starting to do Windows.

On Linux, I can install oneAPI, centrally, for everyone to use; no need for any local installation...I would very much like to do the same thing on Windows.

About 5 months ago, I only knew about the two giant installations, Base + HPC; and, on top of that, there was a must-have pre-requisite: Visual Studio.

Today, I learned about this individual component install for just Fortran...I am so happy.

Currently, I am under the believe that having Visual Studio was not a requirement when installing this...could it be? After all, I just installed and I was able to un-check the box for Visual Studio; then again, I do have VS installed, so, maybe it knew that much and it just did not integrate? I don't know, yet.

Question: is Visual Studio truly a must-have pre-requisite to install and use Intel Fortran Compiler?

After installation of Intel Fortran, I did not find much in the form of registry entries.

Question: would it be possible to install Intel Fortran on the LAN and have users use it from there?

I am willing to inject a few registry entries, if needed, but would very much like to avoid having to install everywhere.

[Steve_Lionel]

Yes, Visual Studio, at least the C++ Desktop Environment part, is required. This provides tools and libraries needed by Intel Fortran, just as gcc is required on Linux. You don't have to use the Visual Studio IDE, but the components must be there.

I don't see how installing "on the LAN" would work, unless users opened a terminal server window on the LAN server.

[Germán]

Thanks for the quick reply. 

"just as gcc is required on Linux"
Don't get this. I mean, when I install gcc on Linux, they give me everything I need, I do get a working compiler and do not have to install anything else.

"I don't see how installing on the LAN would work"
Installing on the LAN works just fine if a program lends itself to it; I mean, once you map a LAN directory to some letter drive, it is no different than, say, the C: drive and they all look like local drives. I already installed a few apps myself (ant, git, java, netbeans, notepad++, winmerge, VScode). The issue comes when a program, as they say, "requires installation", as opposed to simply being dropped somewhere; where, I guess, "installation" means making A LOT of registry entries and/or extracting/installing files all over the place.

So, I just find it unfortunate that this product is not self-contained, standalone at all.

Germán

P.S. On a side note (or post script, I should say), I installed gcc and gfortran on the LAN drive and they work just fine, even without Visual Studio. Ok, I am not telling the whole truth...I installed MinGW, which brings A LOT of stuff...but at least it does not require anything from outside of its deployment directory, and it does not even touch the registry.

[Steve_Lionel]

When I mentioned gcc, I meant that Intel Fortran on Linux requires that gcc be installed, and that the compiler uses tools and libraries from gcc. gcc is not installed by default on all distros and I have seen complaints from Linux users when they failed to install gcc and couldn't get ifort to work.

I don't think the oneAPI compiler looks at the registry at all. If you can get paths to the compiler, tools and libraries on a network share, that should work OK.

[Germán]

Oh, I see...that I did not know (Linux Intel needing gcc).

Anyway, I think I am going to give up on trying to get Intel compiler working from the LAN without installation in the local machine, if it needs Visual Studio, anyway...which in turn probably needs to be installed in the client, too. Also, those who compile are less in numbers than those who use the executable...which brings me to the next point...

What I may need to learn next is that thing about the runtime. Again, coming from Linux, I guess I have never had to worry about this.

So, if I produce a Windows executable with Intel compiler...is it a standalone, self-contained executable or does it need something else to run in a client machine that does not have Intel compiler or Visual Studio?  According to this page, it looks like something is needed; will download and hope I can see what it all installs and where, etc. 

[Germán]

Well, it happened...the one thing I was afraid of.

I just downloaded the Fortran Compiler Runttime and launched the executable...it did something, it installed, but I don't know what or where. It seems I need to know this, if I want to deploy my Intel-Fortran-generated executable, and have anybody be able to execute it.

[Steve_Lionel]

Intel Fortran on Linux also has runtime files that may need to be installed to run an application on a system where the compiler is not installed.

The runtime installer adds the compiler DLLs under C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\intel\Shared Libraries, and adds this location to PATH. You don't typically need to know this.

As an alternative, you can specify that your program links to the static libraries, but this is not recommended, and use of some features (coarrays, OpenMP) doesn't support static linking.

[Germán]

"Intel Fortran on Linux also has runtime files"
Fine; but I guess I've gotten away being ignorant of this because on the Linux side, I have never had to worry about any of this because "LAN drives" (NFS locations) are all mounted all the time and available from every Linux session.

"The runtime installer..."
I see, thanks for that. Maybe my users don't typically need to know this, but I do! I am the one setting things up so that they can execute programs directly from the LAN with minimal or not installation at all; thus, I may place the runtime files in the LAN too and add such location to PATH in a program launcher, previous to running the actual executable.

"As an alternative..."
Aha! Ok, then. So, if I know that we are not using such features, I don't need the runtime? I may consider this or at least not bother with it in the program launcher for programs that don't need it.

Thanks for all these answers.