Open MPI for Debian - Developer Notes ------------------------------------- MPI Alternatives ---------------- The current Open MPI version of Debian uses the Debian Alternatives system. Although Open MPI might replace most of the existing MPI implementations in the future (see http://www.open-mpi.org/faq/?category=general#why), we decided to not affect any other MPI implementation already installed on your system. You can setup Open MPI as default MPI implementation by selecting openmpi as the "mpi" alternative: update-alternatives --config mpi Please note that there is a bug in update-alternatives (namely #388313) that may cause trouble when you install several development packages of other MPI implementations, i.e. LAM or MPICH. If you would like to build Debian packages that link against multiple MPI implementations, we recommend to point your build system to the locations under /usr/lib instead of relying on update-alternatives. This may also allow parallel builds. -- Debian Open MPI Team , Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:34:30 +0200