Absoft Fortran 77 for Linux

This is the compiler I regularly use. Their F77 product has a full complement of VAX extensions, and produces the fastest (single-processor) executables under Linux of any Fortran compiler I've tested. A source-level debugger is included which is very nice and has both Motif and text-window interfaces. The new F77 compiler is even nicer than the old one. I've been able to use it to link with G77-compiled libraries which helps alot.

Absoft has a native F90 product as well. I have used it fairly often and it seems stable although I have not stress-tested it nearly as much as I have their F77 product.

Newer Information

A 14-day trial evaluation of Absoft's compilers is available. Check this link.
optional Auto parallelizing preprocessor with OpenMP support
optional IMSL Math & Stat libraries
Argonne National Laboratory maintains Absoft/MPICH libraries

New Release Information

The Fortran 90 compiler has been extended to include support for most popular workstation and PC extensions (a bad idea if you ask me, but nobody did).
F90 Code optimizers have been improved
New hard-copy User Guide is included; instructions and examples on how to use the product, porting tips, etc.
New Concise F90 Reference is now included in addition to an F77 Reference manual. Both are in electronic form.
Optional IMSL Math and Stat libraries have been upgraded
LAPACK90 is included with an F90 interface
New version of DISLIN graphics package
Autoparallelization and tools for SMP, DMP are available at additional cost, developed in partnership with PSR.
Distribution in both RPM and TAR formats, compatible with glibc, and any Linux implementation based on kernel 2.0 or later

Absoft has an information page about this compiler on their web site.

Old Information

Click here to go to notes on my initial impressions of this compiler, along with some indications of the speed of the code it produces.
Click here to go to my "day 2-5" impressions, including notes about porting a huge code with lots of VAX/VMS extensions.
Click here to see how Absoft responded to the bug mentioned in the "day 2-5" notes.
I have ported a large subset of the CERNLIB libraries to the Absoft/F77 Linux environment. With the new F77 release, these libraries are no longer needed! The distribution is available from the CERN ftp server if you follow this link. Differences from the standard distribution are included for those who wish to build on what I've already done.

Jeff Templon

Last modified: Mon Oct 22 11:44:42 MET DST 2001