Comparison chart

The following chart gives some basic information about the packages. Please consult the previous section for a more detailed discussion of the individual packages.

Parallel

Does the package run in parallel? All the parallel packages are based on MPI, other protocols are noted.

Iterative

Does the package contain iterative methods? A few packages have preconditioners as their main focus, but suppply one or a few iterative methods for the user who doesn't have any yet.

Prec

Does the package contain preconditioners?

Data

How does the package interface to user data? See note 3 below.

Lang

What is the implementation language of the package?

Notes

1

Not the main focus of this package.

2

The library abstracts away from data structure implementation aspects; parallelism is possible, but is the user's responsibility.

3

For the explanation of terms `internal', `prescribed', `supplied', and `free', see section 2.2.1.

3a

converted from compressed row format.

3b

converted from Harwell-Boeing format.

4

Identical to Petsc format.

5

Nothing beyond Jacobi.

6

The external product and solve routines are presumed to find the matrix in a common block.

7

Can not be chosen independently of the iterative method: the user picks a combination.

8

Fortran interface provided.

9

Preconditioners provided in an example C++ matrix class library, SparseLib++.