[R-sig-hpc] R with FlexiBLAS on Mac and Windows

[George Ostrouchov]

Are there good recipes for building R with FlexiBLAS on a Mac and on Windows?

I have found that R with FlexiBLAS provides an easy way to dynamically switch BLAS backends and have dynamic control over core use from R.  This is now becoming more common on clusters, where I have first seen it on systems that use EasyBuild. We have also now done it with spack. I think this has a future, with plans to tackle GPU backend switching eventually.

Having the same control on laptops would provide a consistent pathway to core control from laptop to cluster. This would remove one more barrier in a move from a laptop to a cluster. I would like to use it in my tutorials that aim to take R users to clusters and supercomputers.

Thanks,
George