Merge pull request #35 from EESSI/aoc_update2

Address some comments from meetings

isc25/EESSI/description.tex

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 \subsection*{Overview and Goals}
 
 Application developers, HPC sites, and end users %around the world
-spend significant amounts of time on optimised software installations.
+spend significant amounts of time on optimising software installations.
 Much of this effort is repeatedly duplicated, not just \emph{between}
 individuals but also by the individuals themselves as they reinstall
 the software they need for all of the computational platforms they have access to. 
@@ -26,27 +26,21 @@ \subsection*{Overview and Goals}
 % Hence, an EESSI tutorial is very relevant to ISC'25 attendees as this tool helps relieve these burdens and fosters
 % collaboration.
 
-The \textbf{European Environment for Scientific Software Installations
-(EESSI)}\footnote{\href{https://eessi.io}{https://eessi.io}} project is a collaborative project
-between different partners in the HPC community supported by the MultiXscale EuroHPC Centre of Excellence to build a
+The \textbf{European Environment for Scientific Software Installations (EESSI)}\footnote{\href{https://eessi.io}{https://eessi.io}}
+project is a collaborative project
+between different partners in the HPC community (and supported by the MultiXscale EuroHPC Centre of
+Excellence\footnote{\href{https://multixscale.eu}{https://multixscale.eu}}) to build a
 common stack of optimised scientific software installations for everything from laptops to big HPC systems and cloud
-infrastructures. The project uses EasyBuild to install software on top of a compatibility layer, and uses CernVM-FS to
-distribute the software installations to client systems.
-
-EasyBuild is used by well over 100 HPC sites worldwide (incl. JSC, CSCS, the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, LUMI,
-\ldots),
-has over 125 unique contributors on a yearly basis,
-and an active Slack channel with over 950 members.
-It has reached a critical mass with a welcoming and active community guaranteeing continued development and support, and
-a growing user community.
-%It has reached critical mass, a point where a large user base means more features and software being added regularly, with an accelerated adoption rate, and a welcoming and engaging community.
-%Attendance at the yearly EasyBuild User Meetings has been growing steadily, with close to 100 attendees at the 7th (virtual) edition in Jan'22.
-%As such, we strongly believe that EasyBuild, and the community behind it, will have a positive impact on the attendees' work.
-% The tutorial content is designed to help with getting started quickly and benefit from EasyBuild right after the conference.
-%The tutorial content will be designed to help the attendees getting started with the tool, so they can immediately benefit from it after the conference.
-
-EESSI is an initiative built on the foundations of the EasyBuild community, and goes one step further by providing a
-truly uniform software stack. It already has a wide spectrum of collaborators despite being a relatively young project. EESSI won the HPCwire Readers’ Choice Awards 2024 as Best HPC Programming Tool or Technology. \footnote{\href{https://www.hpcwire.com/2024-readers-editors-choice-best-hpc-programming-tool-or-technology/}{https://www.hpcwire.com/2024-readers-editors-choice-best-hpc-programming-tool-or-technology/}}
+infrastructures. The project uses EasyBuild\footnote{\href{https://easybuild.io}{https://easybuild.io}} to install
+software on top of a compatibility layer, and leverages CernVM-FS\footnote{\href{https://cernvm.cern.ch/fs}{https://cernvm.cern.ch/fs}} to
+distribute the software installations to client systems. In 2024, it was selected as winner of the HPCwire Readers’ Choice Awards
+in the "Best HPC Programming Tool or Technology"
+category.\footnote{\href{https://www.eessi.io/docs/blog/2024/11/18/hpcwire-readers-choice-awards-2024-for-eessi/}{https://www.eessi.io/docs/blog/2024/11/18/hpcwire-readers-choice-awards-2024-for-eessi/}}
+
+EESSI is an initiative built on the foundations of the EasyBuild community, which is used by well over 100 HPC sites worldwide
+(incl. JSC, CSCS, the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, LUMI, \ldots), and goes one step further by providing a
+truly uniform software stack. It already has a wide spectrum of collaborators including SURF, BSC, Ghent University, etc.,
+despite being a relatively young project.
 
 EESSI is motivated by the observation that the landscape of computational science is changing in various ways.
 Additional families of general-purpose microprocessors including Arm 64-bit (aarch64) and RISC-V on top of th
@@ -75,9 +69,9 @@ \subsection*{Overview and Goals}
 project consists of 3 layers, which are constructed by leveraging various open source software projects:
 % the filesystem layer to distribute the software stack; the compatibility layer to level the ground across different client operating systems; the software layer to run optimized applications and provided their dependencies.
 \begin{itemize}
-\item The filesystem layer uses CernVM-FS to distribute the EESSI software stack to client systems
-\item The compatibility layer levels the ground across different (versions of) the Linux operating system (OS)
-      of client systems that use the software installations provided by EESSI. It consists of a limited set of libraries
+\item The filesystem layer uses CernVM-FS to distribute the EESSI software stack to client systems.
+\item The compatibility layer levels the ground across the various versions of the Linux operating system
+      of the clients so that they can use the software installations provided by EESSI. It consists of a limited set of libraries
       and tools that are installed in a non-standard filesystem location (a "prefix"), which were built from source for
       the supported CPU families using Gentoo Prefix.
 \item The user-facing layer of EESSI is called the software layer, which contains the actual scientific software applications

isc25/EESSI/handson.tex

@@ -1,25 +1,26 @@
-A significant portion of the tutorial time is used for guided examples and hands-on,
-as they are fundamental to exposing the benefits of EESSI.
-This highlights the practical nature of the tutorial.
+A significant portion of the tutorial is used for guided examples and hands-on,
+which are fundamental to exposing the benefits of EESSI and highlight the practical nature of the tutorial.
 Before each example session the theoretical concepts are explained through a consistent set of presentation materials.
-The guided examples will be carried out in a pre-configured environment on virtual machines in the Cloud that can be
-accessed by the
+Guided examples will be carried out in a pre-configured environment on virtual machines in the Cloud that can be
+accessed by
 attendees from their laptops using SSH. 
-The examples cover accessing EESSI in different ways such as native, in a production HPC setup as well as inside
-containers, the use cases of EESSI, adding support for new software to EESSI, troubleshooting, GPU support, selected
+The examples cover accessing EESSI in various ways (such as in a production HPC setup or via
+containers), the use cases of EESSI, adding support for new software to EESSI, troubleshooting, GPU support, selected
 advanced features, and how to contribute to EESSI.
 % Each example builds on the previous one and hence also showcases a typical workflow.
-The guided examples will happen mostly in the proximity of a coffee break allowing the attendees to continue
-a bit during the coffee break should they want to and ensuring the maximum benefit from the tutorial.
+%The guided examples will happen in the proximity of a coffee break allowing the attendees to continue
+%during the coffee break should they want to and ensuring the maximum benefit from the tutorial.
 
-The tutorial is based on previous tutorials archived at
-\url{https://github.com/EESSI/docs/tree/main/talks/20231205-Introduction-to-EESSI-CASTIEL2},
-but will be updated with new developments in EESSI and EasyBuild.
-This tutorial will also be made available on that site, and will also refer to the EESSI documentation on
-\url{https://www.eessi.io/docs}.
-It should be noted that even though this tutorial has never been presented at ISC, all the authors have extensive
-experience in other tutorials and workshops, both inside and outside the ISC and SC conference series. Additionally,
-they engaged in other collaborative efforts within the EESSI and EasyBuild community. Providing coherent and streamlined
+The tutorial is based on previous online tutorials from December 2023
+\href{https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eessi/docs/main/talks/20231205-Introduction-to-EESSI-CASTIEL2/20231205-Introduction-to-EESSI-CASTIEL2.pdf}{"An introduction to EESSI"} ($\sim60$ live attendees, see \href{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAYI9oKFLxA}{YouTube for recording}) and
+\href{https://raw.githubusercontent.com/multixscale/cvmfs-tutorial-hpc-best-practices/main/files/Best-Practices-for-CernVM-FS-in-HPC-20231204.pdf}{"Best Practices for CernVM-FS in HPC"} ($\sim130$ live attendees, see \href{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0Mmy7NBXDU}{YouTube for recording}),
+but will be updated with new developments in EESSI and the CernVM-FS infrastructure.
+The tutorial material will be integrated in the EESSI documentation available at
+\href{https://www.eessi.io/docs}{https://www.eessi.io/docs} (similar to \href{https://tutorial.easybuild.io/}{https://tutorial.easybuild.io/}).
+
+It should be noted that though this tutorial has never been presented at ISC, all the authors have extensive
+experience in other tutorials and workshops, both inside and outside the ISC conference series.
+They are also engaged in other collaborative training efforts within the EESSI and EasyBuild community. Providing coherent and streamlined
 tutorial is well within the authors' experience.
 
 % This tutorial was presented in the half-day format at ISC'22

isc25/EESSI/outline.tex

@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ \subsubsection*{Half-day format, 3.5 hours of tutorial content}
     \item [11:00-11:30] \emph{(30min coffee break)}
     \item [11:30-12:00] \emph{(30min)} Building software on top of EESSI - hands-on with EESSI-extend
     \item [12:00-12:15] \emph{(15min)} GPU support, incl. hands-on demo
-    \item [12:15-12:30] \emph{(10min)} Alternative access mechanisms: containers, cvmfsexec (15min) - hands-on demo
+    \item [12:15-12:30] \emph{(10min)} Alternative access mechanisms: containers, cvmfsexec - hands-on demo
     \item [12:40-12:50] \emph{(20min)} Performance tuning (host injections, startup perf by tuning CernVM-FS)
     \item [12:50-13:00] \emph{(10min)} Q\&A + closing remarks
 

isc25/EESSI/prerequisites.tex

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 Attendees wishing to participate in the guided examples are expected to use their
-own notebook computers with a working SSH client.
+own notebook computers with a working SSH client, and have some familiarity with
+the Linux shell environment.
 
 Detailed information on how to prepare for this tutorial will be provided
 through the tutorial website, similar to

isc25/EESSI/travelsupport.tex

@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
-The tutorial presenters request free passes for their tutorial,
-as well as travel support for two presenters, one from Spain, one from Belgium.
+The tutorial presenters request 3 complimentary tutorial passes for their tutorial,
+as well as travel support for two presenters from Europe.