Subject: Idiosyncratic Fortran Executables Under Linux

From: Warren DeLano <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 11:14:19 -0700

NOTE: My apologies if this is a FAQ, but I didn't find the answer when
searching the archives.

I've noticed that certain precompiled fortran executables behave poorly
under Linux in one or more of the following respects:

    (1) terminating instead of continuing after a suspend signal
    (2) failing to run as background processes (even with redirected
i/o/e).
    (3) crashing if the program isn't run under a login shell.

Identical programs compiled for IRIX don't suffer these problems
(examples: ICM, batchmin, tinker, GAMESS...)

When source code is available and I recompile under g77, these problems
go away, so my suspicion is that the problem is linked to one of the
commercial Fortan compilers (PGI?).  These idiosyncracies present a real
barrier to interfacing multiple programs, since programs must be able to
run via sub-shells, ideally launched from perl or python.

Has anyone experienced similar problems and found a generic solution?
I've found that (1)&(2) can be manually surmounted with "nohup", and (3)
can be worked-around by "rsh"-ing onto the local machine, but these are
sub-optimal solutions.

Please repond directly to me, and I'll summarize responses to CCL in
order to minimize traffic.

Cheers,
Warren
--
mailto:[email-masked]
Warren L. DeLano, Ph.D.
Informatics Scientist
Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
3696 Haven Ave., Suite C
Redwood City, CA 94063
(650)-562-3106 fax: (650)-556-8824