Most of my regular readers probably know by now that I am developing OpenMP-codes for work. I am also using Linux, more precisely Ubuntu Linux (even more precisely: Kubuntu Linux 6.10). When it comes to compilers for this platform, the Intel Compiler is one of the few affordable choices available - at least if you need OpenMP-support. Affordable in this case used to mean free for private use, cheap for academia and very reasonably priced for everyone else.

I would like to tell you about how to install the Intel Compiler on a Debian-based system. Installation of this compiler used to be a real pain. There is an installation-guide still available online. It's for Fortran, but used to work for C/C++ as well. It involves converting the rpm-packages with alien and for AMD64-based systems even messing around with these packages. Not too much fun, especially since it took a long time to do and was the primary reason I used to not update our compiler too often.

With the newest packages, the situation has changed. Although Ubuntu or Debian are still not officially supported, it is now possible to install the compiler using these steps:

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