[Dune-devel] Dune on MacOS

[Christoph Grüninger]

Hi Simon,

I never used a macOS myself, but I can share some insights:

> Recently, some of my colleagues tried to install Dune (core modules +
> some extensions) on their Mac. They used the default compiler on a MacOS
>>= 10.13 and got several compiler errors, e.g. related to missing
> std::optional.

Is there really a default compiler? I think you need to install Xcode.
You can have a look what LLVM is part of a Xcode:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcode#Xcode_11.x_-_13.x_(since_SwiftUI_framework)_2

> Can anyone share their experience with MacOS since I myself do not own
> any of these systems, i.e.
> 
> - Which MacOS is supported with its default software?

I think there is no default, you have to install it explicitly.

> - Is there a minimal supported version for Apple-clang?

See the list of Xcode version, newer version might required recent
versions of macOS.

> - Are there any other restrictions on a standard MacOS setup?
> - What about external dependencies, like MPI, BLAS, LAPACK or
> SuiteSparse? Are they available via package managers?

Most of our users in the past relied on homebrew. MacPorts is an
alternative. Both should provide all Dune dependencies.

> - Is it possible to replace the default apple compiler easily by
> something else?

Setting the compiler when calling CMake should do the trick.

I hope I did not confuse too much.

Bye
Christoph