How to install TBB from source on Linux and make it work

Question

I would like to know how to install TBB from source and make it work on a Linux system. I have had some problems when it comes using it, problems that don't appear if I install TBB via the package manager.

In the TBB webpage, there are some guidelines on how about to do this, like setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH and CPATH variables, or sourcing the tbbvars.sh file. Even if I do that, when I try to compile an example g++ says that tbb is not found.

So my question is, is there an easy way to setup everything (compile the source code, what variables should I set...) in order to use TBB?

Thanks.

NOTE: The library version number when this question was asked was 2 (if I recall correctly). I have personally tested the solution up to version 4.1, but I think it should work too for current version 4.2 (update 3) since the building method remains the same.

Answer 1

I have come with the solution. I'll post it here so it will help others with this topic.

1. Download the latest stable source code and uncompress it, i.e in ~/tbbsrc

2. Inside, type make. It should start compiling the tbb library and the memory allocators.

3. The headers are in ~/tbbsrc/include

4. Inside ~/tbbsrc/build will be two new folders, one for the release version and the other for the debug version. Those folders are named like architecture_ldVersion_g++Version_kernelVersion.

5. I recommend setting some variables, for example in your ~/.bashrc file, like:

TBB_INSTALL_DIR = $HOME/tbbsrc
TBB_INCLUDE = $TBB_INSTALL_DIR/include
TBB_LIBRARY_RELEASE = $TBB_INSTALL_DIR/build/RELEASE_FOLDER
TBB_LIBRARY_DEBUG = $TBB_INSTALL_DIR/build/DEBUG_FOLDER

6. Let's try a simple example:

// main.cpp
#include "tbb/task_scheduler_init.h"

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
    // tbb::task_scheduler_init init(tbb::task_scheduler_init::automatic);
    // implicit tbb::task_sheduler_init::automatic
    tbb::task_scheduler_init init;
    return 0;
}

7. To compile, for example, with the release version:

g++ main.cpp -I$TBB_INCLUDE -Wl,-rpath,$TBB_LIBRARY_RELEASE -L$TBB_LIBRARY_RELEASE -ltbb

Note: with -Wl,-rpath,$TBB_LIBRARY_RELEASE, we are telling the dynamic linker where to find libtbb.so

8. And that should work fine!

Best regards!

Installation for Apple clang 5.1: [thanks to rwols for the info]

Instead of typing make, type make compiler=clang or make compiler=clang stdlib=libc++