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System Requirements

Please note:
Some releases include detail about the memory, disk space, and processor speed needed for reasonable performance. These configurations are a guideline. Performance may be impacted by the complexity of design and number of concurrent processes.

Calibre Platform Support Overview and Roadmap

November 21, 2011

The following table provides an overview of the various combinations of hardware architectures and operating systems that Calibre currently supports and intends to support in the upcoming year. The Calibre product organization regularly reviews platform and operating systems in order to develop platform support plans. The support roadmap is a forecast and may be adjusted to better mesh with customer needs and with the availability of specific hardware and operating systems. Please refer to the Calibre System Configurations section below for details on support of minor versions of Linux.

 

 

Calibre System Configurations

The Calibre tools may require a minimum OS patch level for each supported OS. Please see the Calibre Administrator’s Guide provided with the particular Calibre release you are interested in. The Calibre Administrator’s Guide provides release-specific information on required patch levels and other information on supported environments.

LINUX

The Calibre toolset is supported for use with the Linux operating system on two different hardware platforms. In general, any "Tier 1" hardware supported by either Red Hat or Novell (SUSE) is supported for use with the Calibre toolset. The correct software must be loaded on a particular hardware platform to use Calibre, and the supported OS versions, service packs or updates are listed below.

Since there are practical limitations for fully qualifying Calibre on each & every Linux distribution customers may use, Calibre selects a subset on which to focus testing. The subset of OS versions is typically chosen based on 2 factors: whether the version/update provides support for additional hardware, or has bug fixes for significant problems that affect the execution or development of Calibre. Use of any other OS version, service pack or update not mentioned here is covered under the terms of the "Linux Distribution Compatibility Statement":

Linux Distribution Compatibility Statement

If customers encounter problems using Mentor Graphics tools on an unsupported Linux distribution, and the problem can be duplicated on a supported production Linux distribution, it will be addressed through normal Mentor Graphics support policies.  If a problem only exists on the unsupported Linux distribution, the fix lies in a changes to the Linux environment, not the Mentor Graphics product. In this case, customers should contact their Linux supplier.

Calibre Customer Support can assist a customer by attempting to reproduce an issue on one of the supported production Linux versions.

Supported Linux hardware platforms are:

  • x86 (32-bit) -- Prior to the Calibre 2011.1 release, Calibre downloads that support x86 32-bit processors began with the character string "ixl". As of the Calibre 2011.1 release, Calibre downloads that support x86 32-bit processors begin with the character string "x86". Only 32-bit Calibre is supported on x86 platforms.
  • x86-64 (32/64-bit) -- Calibre downloads that support x86-64 processors begin with the character string "ixl". Prior to the Calibre 2011.1 release, Calibre software used "ixl" for a single software tree that supported both x86 and x86-64 compatible processors with a merged 32-bit and 64-bit MGC_HOME tree. As of the Calibre 2011.1 release, this single MGC_HOME tree is split into separate 32-bit and 64-bit Linux trees.The "ixl" tree now contains binaries that are 64-bit only.  Both 32-bit and 64-bit Calibre are supported on x86-64 platforms. There are two x86-64 processor products supplied by different vendors, AMD and Intel. The Calibre toolset is qualified and supported on computers based on either of these processors.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Calibre support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is determined by the operating system version, for example RHEL 4u8 or RHEL 5.5. The "edition" or "variant" does not matter as that is how Red Hat packages, prices and supports RHEL, and does not affect Calibre support.  Formerly, Red Hat referenced editions of RHEL, including "AS", "ES", or "WS." Currently, they refer to variants, including "Server", Advanced Platform", Desktop", or "Desktop with Workstation." All editions and variants are supported as long as a supported operating system version is loaded.

Note, however, that RHEL for IBM POWER systems is not supported.  Also, Red Hat Fedora Linux is maintained, distributed, and supported differently than RHEL, and is not supported for use with the Calibre product line.  Any use of the Red Hat Fedora operating system is governed by the "Linux Distribution Compatibility Statement" provided above.

RHEL 6.1 retro-qualification of older Calibre releases

In order to support customer requirements for upgrading to new hardware and associated operating systems, Calibre is in the process of qualifying Calibre 2008.1 and newer releases on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) v6.1.  This currently results in a few "holes" in the tables below. This information will be updated monthly as qualification progresses.  Please note that this qualification is intended to verify that the release's functionality operates on RHEL 6.1 equally well to how that release operates on the originally-qualified RHEL operating system versions. Note that all releases prior to Calibre 2009.3 will consume a license for Nehalem hyperthreaded virtual cores. The capability to handle Nehalem hyperthreaded virtual cores without consuming a license is available with Calibre 2009.3 and newer releases.

Linux x86 Platform (32-bit only)

The following table indicates which Linux OS versions are supported on x86 platforms in a specific Calibre release.

SLES 11sp1 replaces the initial SLES 11 release. Service Pack 1 (sp1) contains important defect fixes for SLES 11 in addition to improved reliability and stability. We strongly recommend that any customer currently using SLES 11 upgrade to SLES 11sp1. Calibre will still run on SLES 11, but any issues found will need to be reproduced on one of the supported OS versions in order to be addressed. Please refer to the Mentor Graphics "Linux Distribution Compatibility Statement" provided above for more information.

If a customer is experiencing any NFS or automounter issues while running older RHEL 5 versions, we strongly recommend upgrading to RHEL 5.3, 5.4, or 5.5 which contain an important kernel fix.

If a customer is experiencing any NFS or automounter issues while running the initial release of RHEL 6, we strongly recommend upgrading to RHEL 6.1 which provides substantial improvement over RHEL 6.0.

64-bit Calibre execution is not available on the x86 platform.

Notice Regarding Future Support of RHEL 4 and SLES 10

Support for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) version 4 series and the SUSE Linux Enterprise Software (SLES) version 10 series will be discontinued as of Calibre 2012.3 which is scheduled for release in August 2012. The final release that will officially support RHEL 4 and SLES 10 will be Calibre 2012.2. All updates and service packs associated with RHEL 4 and SLES 10 will be included in the discontinuation and will no longer be supported in Calibre 2012.3 and subsequent releases. Calibre 2012.3 and later releases will not be supported and will no longer be operable on Red Hat versions older than RHEL 5 or SLES versions older than SLES 11.

Notice Regarding Support of Older 32-bit x86 microprocessors

In order to better optimize some operations, Calibre uses x86 CPU instructions that are not present in all 32-bit x86 processor models. Calibre uses instructions from the "SSE2" instruction set.  For 32-bit x86 hardware, this requires a Pentium 4 processor or later (Intel), or an Opteron or AMD64 processor, or later (AMD).

Note that all 64-bit processors support the "SSE2" instruction set, therefore 64-bit machines are unaffected by this announcement.

Linux x86-64 Platform (32/64-bit)

The following table indicates which OS versions are supported on x86-64 platforms in a specific Calibre release.


SLES 11sp1 replaces the initial SLES 11 release. Service Pack 1 (sp1) contains important defect fixes for SLES 11 in addition to improved reliability and stability. We strongly recommend that any customer currently using SLES 11 upgrade to SLES 11sp1. Calibre will still run on SLES 11, but any issues found will need to be reproduced on one of the supported OS versions in order to be addressed. Please refer to the Mentor Graphics "Linux Distribution Compatibility Statement" provided above for more information.

If a customer is experiencing any NFS or automounter issues while running older RHEL 5 versions, we strongly recommend upgrading to RHEL 5.3, 5.4, or 5.5 which contain an important kernel fix.

If a customer is experiencing any NFS or automounter issues while running the initial release of RHEL 6, we strongly recommend upgrading to RHEL 6.1 which provides substantial improvement over RHEL 6.0.

64-bit Calibre execution is not available on the x86 platform.

Notice Regarding Future Support of RHEL 4 and SLES 10

Support for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) version 4 series and the SUSE Linux Enterprise Software (SLES) version 10 series will be discontinued as of Calibre 2012.3 which is scheduled for release in August 2012. The final release that will officially support RHEL 4 and SLES 10 will be Calibre 2012.2. All updates and service packs associated with RHEL 4 and SLES 10 will be included in the discontinuation and will no longer be supported in Calibre 2012.3 and subsequent releases. Calibre 2012.3 and later releases will not be supported and will no longer be operable on Red Hat versions older than RHEL 5 or SLES versions older than SLES 11.

Calibre summary for Red Hat & Novell/SUSE Linux operating system support on Linux x86-64 Platform (32/64-bit)

The following table indicates which Linux OS versions are supported on x86-64 platforms for a specific Calibre release.

Solaris

The following table indicates which Sun Solaris OS versions are supported on SPARC and x86-64 platforms in a specific Calibre release.

Solaris 10 is the supported operating system version for the current Calibre product line. Solaris 10 requires the November 2006 Solaris recommended patch cluster, as well as the 118833-36 kernel patch, the 119059-21 Xsun patch, and the 124922-02 ld.so.1 patch.

Later versions of either of the patch clusters or individual patches are also supported. Depending on precisely which patch cluster is loaded, you may or may not need to load the individual patches (i.e. they may be bundled with the patch cluster).

The Calibre product line can be used on any SUN UltraSPARC computer that supports the above OS versions. Please reference the Calibre Administrator’s Guide on the Mentor Graphics SupportNet for additional details.

Support for Solaris x64 (Solaris 10 running on x86-64 based processors) has been available since the Calibre 2007.3 release. Calibre has discontinued support for the Solaris x64 platform with the Calibre 2011.4 release. The last Calibre release supports Solaris x64 is Calibre 2011.3.

Support for Solaris SPARC platform is planned to be discontinued as of the Calibre 2013.1 release planned for February 2013. The last Calibre release that will support Solaris SPARC is Calibre 2012.4 planned for November 2012.

Yellow Dog Linux and Fedora Core 7

The Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) v5.0 operating system is supported specifically for the Calibre nmOPC-CPA software operating on Cell Broadband Engine™ (BE) processor hardware purchased directly from Mercury Computer Systems. These systems are also known as DCBB1 hardware.

The Fedora Core 7 (FC7) operating system is supported specifically for the Calibre nmOPC-CPA software operating on the current version of the Cell Broadband Engine™ (BE) processor hardware known as DCBB2 or QS21 hardware.

The YDL v5.0-based software and FC7-based software cannot be run stand-alone. They require additional Calibre software running on one of the other primary platforms listed above.