2.2.2. Boost

The boost package contains a large number of free peer-reviewed portable C++ source libraries. These libraries are suitable for tasks such as portable file-system access and time or date abstraction, serialization, unit testing, thread creation and multi-process synchronization, parsing, graphing, regular expression manipulation, and many others.

Installing the boost package will provide just enough libraries to satisfy link dependencies (that is, only shared library files). To make full use of all available libraries and header files for C++ development, you must install boost-devel as well.

The boost package is actually a meta-package, containing many library sub-packages. These sub-packages can also be installed individually to provide finer inter-package dependency tracking.

The meta-package does not include dependencies for packages for static linking or packages that depend on the underlying Message Passing Interface (MPI) support.

MPI support is provided in two forms: one for the default Open MPI implementation (package boost-openmpi) and another for the alternate MPICH2 implementation (package boost-mpich2). The selection of the underlying MPI library in use is up to the user and depends on specific hardware details and user preferences. Please note that these packages can be installed in parallel because installed files have unique directory locations.

If static linkage cannot be avoided, the boost-static package will install the necessary static libraries. Both thread-enabled and single-threaded libraries are provided.