bump galsim version

[esheldon]

I'm working on cori.

The current galsim is 1.3. I would like to go up to the latest pre-release tag. The tag is v1.5.0-alpha

I've been using this code for quite some time and it is actually quite stable. And I need the functionality for the work I'm planning to do.

Is it possible to make this pre-release available, but not as default? And then when the full 1.5 release appears move over to that as the default?

[tskisner]

Hi @esheldon , hpcports has become largely deprecated. There are are 2 other efforts (one for the CMB community and one for DESI) which use conda for package management plus a few compiled things. The desi project is called "desiconda" (https://github.com/desihub/desiconda). It has galsim 1.4.3.

The desiconda installation at NERSC uses a python3 stack. galsim is a major PITA to install. It depends on one guy's roll-your-own linear algebra package (TMV), and scons (which is python2 only).

I'm not sure what advice to give. If the desi galsim version is too old, then you could at least load desiconda to get all the dependencies and build the newer version of just the galsim package.

In any case, the hpcports approach of packaging every python package was just unsustainable (and only python2), and the community seems to have converged on the conda package manager. I have conda recipes for some of the problematic compiled packages, but everything else is basically already available through mainstream packages. I have NOT tried to make a conda package for galsim. It is just too insane. You can see how I'm currently compiling galsim and dependencies from the shell snippets here:

https://github.com/desihub/desiconda/tree/master/rules

[esheldon]

I am happy to try desiconda. I would need a more recent galsim, I think.

I understand you can't keep up to date with every new release. But it might be good to add v1.4.4 which I think might be the last in the 1.4* line before 1.5. @rmjarvis can hopefully comment

[esheldon]

Actually I realized this request should go to the desiconda issues, not here. I will do so