rev history: 
2009 November 3:  added notes for Ubuntu 9.10

Introduction :


Using Intel(R) Compilers under Ubuntu (9.10, 9.04, 8.04 and 8.10) Desktop and Debian Desktop

For older Ubuntu and Debian versions, see THIS ARTICLE.

These notes apply to Ubuntu Desktop.  Ubuntu Server was not tested but should be similar.

2 November 2009:  Ubuntu 9.10

For users of Ubuntu 9.10, follow the instructions here.  If you have 9.04 or older, skip ahead to the section titled "Ubuntu 9.04 and Older"

BEFORE YOU INSTALL Intel(R) Fortran for Linux or Intel(R) C++ for Linux on your fresh Ubuntu Desktop installation, you will first need to install several packages to prepare the system to serve as a development platform.  First, open a Terminal window and become root:
sudo bash
(type your user password)

At this point, you should have a root shell.  Test this with command 'whoami' which should return "root"

Check that gcc is installed. By default. Check this with:

gcc --version

It should return "gcc (Ubuntu 4.4.1-4ubuntu8) 4.4.1 (or some newer version - as long as it returns a version  you have gcc installed)

If, for some reason, you do not have gcc installed, use Synaptic Package Manager (under 'System' -> 'Administration' menus) OR use apt-get to install gcc:


apt-get install gcc


Next, install the 'build-essential' package and package g++. This is not installed by default. Again, use Synaptic Package Manager or apt-get :

apt-get install build-essential

this should also install g++, but in test this with:
g++ --version

if g++ is not found, install it:

apt-get install g++

A few other packages are required:
apt-get install rpm
apt-get install ia32-libs    (this is only required on 64bit Ubuntu/Debian systems)

To use the Intel IDB graphical debugger, you will also need the Java JRE 5 or 6 installed:

apt-get install openjdk-6-jre-headless

Next, Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop does not provide libstdc++5, which is required for the Intel Compilers.  You will have to get the package for libstdc++5 from an older Debian or Ubuntu distribution ( 9.04 for example ).  A repository is here:

http://packages.debian.org/stable/base/libstdc++5

On this page, you will see the title "The GNU Standard C++ Library V3".  Scrolling down, find the table for "Download libstdc++5".

9.10:  For 32bit Ubuntu i386 libstdc++5 Installation:
For 32bit  Ubuntu systems you will need to install the 32bit version of libstdc++5, that is, the "i386" package.
Select the download for the libstdc++5 package for "i386".  Pick a mirror site to begin the download.  If you are using Firefox, you will be prompted if you want to "Open with GDebi Package Installer" - select OK to continue.  Otherwise, save the deb package and use your favorite package manager to install.  Install the i386 libstdc++ deb package.  SKIP the Intel 64 Libstdc++5 (AMD64) directions below and find the section on installing the compiler after prerequisites are installed.


9.10: For Intel 64 / AMD64 (64bit Linux installation) Libstdc++5:
follow these instructions IF AND ONLY IF you have a 64bit Ubuntu installation. 

Intel 64 installation:  Select the download for the libstdc++5 package for "amd64".  If you are using Firefox, you will be prompted if you want to "Open with GDebi Package Installer" - select OK to continue.  Otherwise, save the deb package and use your favorite package manager to install.  Install the amd64 libstdc++ deb package.

by default, the 64bit libstdc++.so.5 library will install in /usr/lib which is linked to /usr/lib64. 

Now, you also will need the 32bit libstdc++.so.5 installed in /usr/lib32.  Unfortunately, the "i386" version of the libstdc++5 package wants to install in /usr/lib which is your 64bit library directory and where you just installed the "amd64" libraries - so you DON'T want to download and install the "i386" package into the default location. 
We'll need to download the "i386" package to a temporary directory, use dpkg to extract the contents to the temp directory, then manually copy the library to /usr/lib32 and create the symbolic link:

First, download libstc++5 package for "i386" - save to disk and do NOT launch a package manger to install it.  Save it in your 'Downloads' folder or /tmp (or any other scratch directory).
Using your root terminal window, cd to the directory where you have downloaded the .deb package, it should have a name similar to 'libstdc++5_3.3.6-18_i386.deb'.  The exact version is not important, but make sure it is a "i386" deb package.
Extract to the local directory:

dpkg --extract libstdc++5_3.3.6-18_i386.deb  ./

Notice that a 'usr/' folder was created and the package contents extracted here.  Now we'll copy the library to /usr/lib32

cd usr/lib
cp libstdc++.so.5.0.7 /usr/lib32
cd /usr/lib32
ln -s libstdc++.so.5.0.7 libstdc++.so.5


9.10: Installing the Compiler Now That Prerequisities are Installed (32 and 64bit):

Once you've completed the above, extract your compiler .tgz kit, cd to the compiler installation directory, and run ./install.sh

During the installation, you WILL get a warning message "Detected operating system Debian* (generic) is not supported", followed by
----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
Missing optional pre-requisite
-- operating system type is not supported.
-- system glibc or kernel version not supported or not detectable
-- binutils version not supported or not detectable
----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
"Would you like to perform an unsupported install of this product [yes/no] (no)?"

enter "yes"

This will complete the installation.  Keep in mind, you will get this warning from the compiler installer until such time as this particular OS and version are supported. Once installed, you can read the ReadMe notes in ...installdir.../Documentation directory which has a list of the supported Linux distributions and versions.




Ubuntu 9.04 and Older:

In order to use Intel(R) Compilers ( Fortran or C++ ) under Ubuntu 9.04, 8.04 or 8.10 you will need the latest 11.0 or 10.1 version of the Intel compiler(s). Older 10.0 and 9.1 versions of the compilers may not work properly under Ubuntu 9.04, 8.04 or 8.10.  Keep in mind that new versions of Ubuntu/Debian may not be OFFICIALLY supported by the Intel Compilers.  Please see your ReleaseNotes document with your compiler version for a list of officially supported distributions and versions.

If you have active support for your compiler, you can download the latest Intel compiler version from
https://registrationcenter.intel.com

BEFORE YOU INSTALL Intel(R) Fortran for Linux or Intel(R) C++ for Linux on your fresh Ubuntu Desktop installation, you will first need to install several packages to prepare the system to serve as a development platform:

Check that gcc is installed. By default. Check this with:

gcc --version

By default, Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop installs gcc 4.2.3-2ubuntu7.  8.10 should have gcc 4.3.2, 9.04 gcc 4.3.3

If, for some reason, you do not have gcc installed, use Synaptic Package Manager (under 'System' -> 'Administration' menus) OR use apt-get to install gcc:


apt-get install gcc


Next, install g++. This is not installed by default. Again, use Synaptic Package Manager or apt-get to install package "g++"

apt-get install build-essential
apt-get install g++


Next, you need to install the 32bit compatibility library libstdc++.so.5. To do this, use apt-get or Synaptic Package Manager to retrieve and install package "libstdc++5"

apt-get install libstdc++5

This package may require installing another package as a prerequisite,
"gcc-3.3-base"

If so, go ahead and install this older gcc package.

For x86-64 architecture, you will also need a number of other packages, including package 'ia32-libs' to install the 32bit versions of libstdc++.so.5 in /usr/lib32 as well as 32bit header files in libc6-dev-i386.   These notes apply to Ubuntu 9.04 but should also apply to 8.10 and 8.04

apt-get install ia32-libs
apt-get install lib32stdc++6
apt-get install libc6-dev-i386
apt-get install gcc-multilib
apt-get install g++-multilib


Finally, there is an optional package to consider: The 11.0 version of the Intel Compiler for Linux has a graphical
debugger, a new graphical interface for the IDB debugger. If you want to use this debugger, please make sure to install the Java JRE version 1.5 or greater. This can be done at anytime after the installation of the compiler. However, you will get a warning message about 'missing prerequisite' for the JRE - simply ignore that message and proceed with the installation.  OR to avoid that message and enable the graphical IDE, get the latest JRE from:

http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

Once installation of prerequisites is complete, you are ready to start the Intel compiler(s) installation. During the installation, you may get a message "Detected operating system Debian* (generic) is not supported", followed by
----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
Missing optional pre-requisite
-- operating system type is not supported.
-- system glibc or kernel version not supported or not detectable
-- binutils version not supported or not detectable
----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
"Would you like to perform an unsupported install of this product [yes/no] (no)?"

enter "yes"

This will complete the installation.  Keep in mind, you will get this warning from the compiler installer until such time as this particular OS and version are supported. Once installed, you can read the ReadMe notes in ...installdir.../Documentation directory which has a list of the supported Linux distributions and versions.

February 27, 2009 3:45 PM PST swpark Total Points: 5 Registered User

Thank you for the information. I can finally install the compiler without error.

March 13, 2009 9:27 AM PDT John Rundgren

I have a Xeon 5400 quad core processor with 64 bits Ubuntu 8.10 operating system. Compiling with Intel fortran _ia32, _ia64 or _intel64 gives diagnosis "operating system not supported". Why cannot Intel's fortran compiler work with a Xeon 64 bits configuration?

March 13, 2009 10:05 AM PDT Ronald W. Green (Intel) Total Points: 11,727 Status Points: 11,227 Brown Belt

John, The compiler you use should be the latest 11.0 version, 11.0.081 is currently the latest compiler. Older versions will give the error you indicate. The upcoming 11.1 compiler due out this summer will fully support Ubuntu 8.10.

April 3, 2009 9:30 PM PDT Mohamed Saleh

Thanks a lot for this information

April 22, 2009 5:30 AM PDT Winfrid Tschiedel

Many thanks - this article was also very helpful to install the Compiler 11.1 Suite ( beta ) on Ubuntu 9.04 RC. But using the C++ Compiler I have a very basic problem, calling "icc" I get the follwing error : icc -c second_wall.c Catastrophic error: could not set locale "" to allow processing of multibyte characters compilation aborted for second_wall.c (code 4). A small test with fortran ("ifort") was successful. Thanks again, Winfrid

April 27, 2009 2:27 AM PDT winfrid.tschiedel Total Points: 5 Registered User

In the meantime I found also the solution for 32-bit applications on a 64-bit ubuntu : Install the following packages with sudo apt-get install ia32-libs lib32gcc1 lib32stdc++6 libc6-dev-i386 gcc-multilib This should basically work also for Debian, but I did not test it. For the icc problem ´could not set locale "" to allow processing of multibyte characters ´ there is a bypass set LANG=C.

April 28, 2009 10:06 AM PDT Ronald W. Green (Intel) Total Points: 11,727 Status Points: 11,227 Brown Belt

Winfrid, thanks for the 9.04 ia32 comments. I have updated the doc. I used Ubu 9.04 Desktop and found I only needed ia32-libs and libc6-dev-i386 for 32bit compilations. I am not sure why you needed gcc-multilib (are you cross-compiling for other architectures?) and lib32gcc1 but others should try installing those packages if the notes above are not adequate. ron

April 28, 2009 10:40 AM PDT Ronald W. Green (Intel) Total Points: 11,727 Status Points: 11,227 Brown Belt

Ubuntu 9.04: I am having trouble with g++ and icpc when attempting to compile C++ to 32bit binary: g++ -m32 -o hello hello.cpp /usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.3.3/libstdc++.so when searching for -lstdc++ /usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.3.3/libstdc++.a when searching for -lstdc++ /usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.3.3/libstdc++.so when searching for -lstdc++ /usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.3.3/libstdc++.a when searching for -lstdc++ /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lstdc++ collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

April 28, 2009 10:50 AM PDT Ronald W. Green (Intel) Total Points: 11,727 Status Points: 11,227 Brown Belt

found it - needed apt-get install g++-multilib. Added to note.

May 9, 2009 10:58 AM PDT Jefferson

I have a Pentium 4 processor with 32 bits Ubuntu 9.04 operating system. I followed the instructions in this articles but I am not able to install the Intel(R) Fortran for Linux. I am getting the following message: Missing optinal pre-requisite -- operating system type is not supported -- system glibc or kernel version not supported or not detectable -- binutils version not supported or not detectable In the details do not appear Ubuntu 9.04 among supported OS's.

May 9, 2009 2:14 PM PDT Chast

I get the same error: (Ubuntu 9.04, 2.6.28-12-generic) Missing optinal pre-requisite -- operating system type is not supported -- system glibc or kernel version not supported or not detectable -- binutils version not supported or not detectable Anyone?

May 13, 2009 8:37 AM PDT Huiqun Zhou

I just installed Intel Compiler Suite 11.0.083 under ubuntu 9.04 according to the procedure described above. But, whatever I set the environment by including . /opt/intel/Compiler/11.0/083/bin/iccvars.sh intel64 in .profile or running it directly at console, icc can always not be found. I indeed got same "Missing optional pre-requisite" as reported by other users during installation. If I use absolute path, I can compile the sample programs in Samples/C++. What's wrong with the setting?

May 13, 2009 3:47 PM PDT Ronald W. Green (Intel) Total Points: 11,727 Status Points: 11,227 Brown Belt

Installation WILL still warn that you are on an unsupported platform, this is documented above: "Once installation of prerequisites is complete, you are ready to start the Intel compiler(s) installation. During the installation, you may get a message "Detected operating system Debian* (generic) is not supported", followed by "Would you like to perform an unsupported install of this product [yes/no] (no)?" enter "yes" This will complete the installation." So IGNORE the warnings and install. Keep in mind, Ubuntu 9.04 is UNSUPPORTED at this time, but it should work nonetheless.

May 13, 2009 4:02 PM PDT Ronald W. Green (Intel) Total Points: 11,727 Status Points: 11,227 Brown Belt

Huiqun Zhou, Perhaps you are in csh or tcsh instead of bash? echo $0 will print your shell. See this forum article and see if it helps. OR try replacing ". /opt....." with "source /opt...." ron

May 13, 2009 4:02 PM PDT Ronald W. Green (Intel) Total Points: 11,727 Status Points: 11,227 Brown Belt

http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-fortran-compile..... pic/65307/

May 18, 2009 6:04 AM PDT Huiqun Zhou

Ronald, Thank you for your quick response! Sorry for my late reply as I'm still not used to discuss problems on a Web forum. My shell is indeed bash, and changing ". /opt/..." into "source /opt/..." makes no difference. It seems that life is always hard without support:-( Thank you, anyway. Huiqun

May 18, 2009 6:35 AM PDT Huiqun Zhou

Hi, This is a follow-up to my own question. Simply to say, the problem is solved although I don't know what mistake I made when I set the environment in .bashrc. Today, it works! Also, I made clear one thing: setting the environment in .profile won't work. Huiqun

May 23, 2009 8:58 AM PDT hossein309 Total Points: 105 Status Points: 55 Green Belt

Hi, i try install lib32stdc++6 on ubuntu 9.04 (64 bit) but get such error : " lib32stdc++6: depends: gcc-4.3-base (=4.3.2-1.1) but 4.3.3-5ubuntu4 is to be installed" I can't uninstall installed version beacuse in it uninstall almost all of my linux. How i can install this version ? and where i can find it ? Thanks.

May 24, 2009 2:37 AM PDT amit024003

I had tried to install Intel Compiler Suite 11.0.083 on ubuntu 9.04 amd 64. I got this warning ----------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- Missing optional pre-requisite -- operating system type is not supported. -- system glibc or kernel version not supported or not detectable -- binutils version not supported or not detectable ----------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- do any one have suggestion? Please give solution.

May 26, 2009 4:41 PM PDT Ronald W. Green (Intel) Total Points: 11,727 Status Points: 11,227 Brown Belt

Amit, The note above does say that you will still get that warning message - the OS is not supported. However, you should ignore the warning and install anyway. I will try to make this more clear in the note above. thanks ron

June 1, 2009 6:45 AM PDT amit024003

Ronald thanks -- Amit

June 1, 2009 6:57 AM PDT amit024003

If I set env. variable through " source ....../...sh intel64" but I again did mistakenly " source ....../...sh ia32". Then which one is used when I compiled. Or is their any way to use either of both according to my application?

June 1, 2009 7:07 AM PDT amit024003

And one thing that "ipp" and "tbb" have em64t not intel64 what does it mean? What should I to enable these library on Intel 64 architecture ? -- Amit

June 1, 2009 8:15 AM PDT Ronald W. Green (Intel) Total Points: 11,727 Status Points: 11,227 Brown Belt

You can source either ifortvars.sh with ia32 or intel64. The ia32 compiler can only create 32bit binaries and applications. The Intel 64 compiler will create 64bit binaries and applications. For the Intel 64 compiler, see the -mcmodel option for how the compiler sets the pointer sizes. You cannot mix 32bit and 64 bit binaries. So you cannot create a library with the ia32 compiler and then link with the Intel 64 compiler. And vice versa. So pick a model, probably Intel 64, and be consistent. The only time you may want to use the ia32 compiler is if you want to create a binary that will run on older 32bit computers and OS versions. Ipp and TBB: em64t == Intel 64. It's unfortunate naming: originally Intel called their first 64bit processors "EM64T" for Extended Memory 64bit Technology. Some marketing folks didn't like this name and decided to change it to "Intel 64" some years back, and at the same time decided to call Itanium "IA64" just to confuse everyone. Amit, for these questions, let us use the Intel Fortran for Linux and Mac OS forum at http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums

June 2, 2009 2:12 AM PDT amit024003

ok, Ronald & Thanks

June 15, 2009 3:08 PM PDT zbeekman Total Points: 710 Status Points: 210 Brown Belt

My workstation at work died and our sysadmin is too busy with a cluster install to help me restore it. I believe it is xeon cpu. uname -a gives me x86_64 as my architecture. My game plan is to get a trial version online of the compiler suite and the fix the license file to point it to our license server. Which package should i download and install? Is my cpu intel64 or ia64? Ideally i would like to be able to cross compile too (i.e. 32 bit binaries). Any thoughts about which version(s) of the compiler suite I should grab from intel's webpage? (my background is not in CS or CA) Many thanks.

June 15, 2009 3:14 PM PDT Ronald W. Green (Intel) Total Points: 11,727 Status Points: 11,227 Brown Belt

You have an Intel 64 system. IA64 is Itanium. If you download l_cprof_p_11.x.xxx.tgz this kit has both the 32 and 64 bit compilers (note that it's size is bigger). Using the instructions above you should be able to build both 32 and 64bit binaries. 'ifortvars.sh ia32' or 'ifortvars.sh intel64' will set the env for 32 or 64 bits.

June 16, 2009 8:01 PM PDT zbeekman Total Points: 710 Status Points: 210 Brown Belt

Thanks, figured it out. The inte64 nomenclature confused me initially.

June 18, 2009 5:31 PM PDT brunocalado Total Points: 591 Status Points: 91 Brown Belt

Is there anyway to set the env variable without use source? It is very boring call it every time, even using a script.

June 30, 2009 9:50 AM PDT zbeekman Total Points: 710 Status Points: 210 Brown Belt

Why don't you add it to your .bashrc or .profile or /etc/rc.local etc? You could also read through the scripts since they are open source and set the environment by hand somewhere in your startup scripts, etc. too. I just source the environment scripts from my .profile (ubuntu) file.

July 5, 2009 6:26 AM PDT azalia

Dear Ronald W. Greena, I installed intel fortran 11.1 on ubuntu 9.10 alpha 2 by following the manual on the website, while when i update the envirment with 'sudo .ifortvas ia32', no error information was given, but the envirment was not update in fact. so do you have any suggestions? thank you very much!

July 23, 2009 12:28 PM PDT wwzhdo Total Points: 40 Registered User

Hello Ronald, Recently I downloaded free evaluation intel compiler and installed it on Ubuntu 9, installation was sucessful, however, when I ran the compiler, I got the following error, ubuntu01:~$ /opt/intel/Compiler/11.1/046/bin/ia32/icc icc: error #10310: Failed to enable trusted storage check for licensing: WARNING: Enable Trusted Storage failed (flexnet error code 2). Trusted Storage based license could How to solve this problem? Thank!

August 14, 2009 4:24 AM PDT Baltazaar Total Points: 314 Status Points: 264 Green Belt

Hmmm... I installed the Intel Compiler Suite on Linux (including the Fortran compiler and all the neccesary prereqs) from a single binary file... It installed into /opt by default, and after adding the executable directory to $PATH, everything worked well in both CodeBlocks and Eclipse.... What package are we talking about here?

August 19, 2009 8:34 PM PDT Joris

I have a question to the experts here. I followed above instructions and the installer indicated a successful install, but we I try to evoke the compiler with ifort, it seems to command is unknown. Is there anything else I need to do in order to use the compiler? Any help is greatly appreciated, since I am quite a novice to this.

September 8, 2009 11:45 PM PDT mahe

Hi, The content in this site was very much useful...thank you Hi Mr. Joris what we follow for evoking "ifort" is to include the following line in the file "/home/user_name/.bashrc" PATH=$PATH:/opt/intel/fc/10.1.018/bin if you have installed with THE DEFAULT LOCATION ASKED WHILE INSTALL or else just CHANGE THE PATH TO YOUR INSTALLATION FOLDER where "ifort" file is located.

September 18, 2009 11:43 AM PDT Intel Software Network Support Total Points: 3,808 Status Points: 3,308 Brown Belt

All -- please post your questions to the forums or submit your issues via Premier Support for any products you have registered, as support is not typically available in the page comments. -Lexi Intel(R) Software Network Support

November 20, 2009 11:58 PM PST Joydeep

Ronald, Thanks for a thorough set of instructions. I have Ubuntu 9.10 on an AMD Opteron dual-core, and I could not possibly have installed the compiler without these instructions. Joydeep

To obtain technical support, please go to Software Support.