[FLASH-USERS] Announcement of FLASH3.0_prealpha release

The Flash Code group is pleased to announce a 'pre-alpha' release of
the next major version of the FLASH code, version 3.0. At this time,
the pre-alpha release of FLASH3 does not include all the physics
capablities of FLASH2. It does include 1/2/3d PPM hydrodynamics on
uniform and adaptive grids in cartesian geometry, gamma-law equations
of state with multiple fluid gammas, and all infrastructure units. In
an advanced stage of development, to be included in a release in early
fall 2006, are units for nuclear burning, tracer particles, source
terms, the Helmholtz equation of state, simple gravity, and a new 2d
unsplit MHD scheme.

In terms of the code architecture, FLASH3 is a significant departure
from FLASH2. This pre-alpha release demonstrates the architecture
changes. It is available for download at
 
http://flash.uchicago.edu/website/download/home.html

Additionally, because of the increasing importance of software
verification and validation, the Flash Code group is releasing a
test-suite application for FLASH3 called FlashTest which can be used
to setup, compile, execute and test a series of FLASH code simulations
on a regular basis. FlashTest is available without a liscense and can
be downloaded at

http://flash.uchicago.edu/website/codesupport

Many, but not all parts of FLASH3 are backwards compatible with
FLASH2. The Flash code group has written extensive documentation
detailing how to make the transition from FLASH2 to FLASH3 as smooth
as possible. The user should look to http://flash.uchicago.edu/website/codesupport/
for help on transitioning to FLASH3. In this initial release, all the documentation
is included on the website rather than in the tarball. This website also
contains other documentation including a user's guide and a developer's
section. A new feature in FLASH3 documentation is the online
description of the public interface routines to various code units.

Some more specific new features in the code include:

-- Increased modularity through better encapsulation of code units.
-- Clean public interfaces for each code unit.
-- Support for a Uniform Grid.
-- Ability to switch between uniform and adaptive Grid for same
   application.
-- Support for blocksizes not defined at compile time.
-- Unit test framework and many unit tests.
-- Enhanced setup script with seamless library management and the
   ability to suggest units a user might have neglected.
-- Extensive web published API documentation for all units in the code.

FLASH should be portable to most UNIX-like operating systems with a python
interpreter, Fortran 90 compiler, C compiler and MPI library. It has undergone regular
testing on the following platforms.

-- IRIX 6.5

   compilers: MIPSpro 7.4.4m
 
-- Linux

   3 different compiler combinations were tested on Intel Linux machines.

   os and compilers: Linux 2.6.12:
                     Portland Group Fortran (pgf90) 6.0-4 and gcc 3.4.4
                     
                     Linux 2.6.5:
                     Lahey/Fujitsu Fortran 95 Express Release L6.20c (lf95) and
                     gcc 3.3.3

                     Linux 2.6.5:
                     Intel Fortran Compiler, version 9.0, with gcc 3.4.4.
                           

The HDF5 units require HDF5 v. 1.4.3 or later (1.6.2 recommended).

Development of the FLASH Code was funded by the DOE-supported
ASC/Alliance Center for Astrophysical Thermonuclear Flashes. We
acknowledge support received from Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory and the University of Chicago.

All publications resulting from the use of the FLASH Code must
acknowledge the ASC/Alliance Center for Astrophysical Thermonuclear
Flashes. Addition of the following text to the paper acknowledgments
will be sufficient.

        "The software used in this work was in part developed by the
        DOE-supported ASC/Alliance Center for Astrophysical Thermonuclear
        Flashes at the University of Chicago."

The Flash Code Group
Received on Thu Apr 27 13:11:24 2006