Portable Computing Language

Portable Computing Language, or pocl for short, is a free and open-source command-line tool made using C/C++. It’s built to efficiently follow the OpenCL standard, making it super handy for developers.

What Makes pocl Stand Out?

This software includes a bunch of LLVM (Low Level Virtual Machine) passes. The main goal? To make OpenCL applications easier to use across different platforms while optimizing performance with various compiler tweaks. PocL supports ICD (Installable Client Driver) and comes with a portable kernel compiler that packs some cool features.

Cool Features of the Portable Kernel Compiler

One exciting feature in the portable kernel compiler is horizontal auto-vectorization of workgroups. This might sound complex, but it helps speed things up! Plus, it has efficient math libraries built right in and core APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) written in C, tailored for barebone PCs.

Compatibility and Support

PocL works well with lots of OpenCL apps, including ViennaCL 1.5.1 examples, many Parboil benchmarks, Rodinia 2.0.1, piglit, Luxmark 2.0, along with samples from the OpenCL Programming Guide book and AMD APP SDK v2.8 OpenCL samples.

Portability Across Platforms

True to its name, Portable Computing Language is indeed portable! It's been tested on all sorts of hardware setups like x86_64 (64-bit), PowerPC64, PowerPC32, ARM v7, and various VLIW-style TTA CPUs designed using TCE in mixed host-device setups.

Easy Installation on GNU/Linux

If you want to install Portable Computing Language on your GNU/Linux system, it's quite straightforward! Just make sure you have the hwloc, ocl-icd, opencl, clang, and llvm packages set up on your distribution first.

How to Download pocl

You can download the latest version here. After downloading from Softpedia or their official site (the link is at the end of this article), save the archive somewhere on your PC. Extract everything using an archive manager tool and fire up a terminal emulator application.

Final Steps for Installation

In your Terminal app, navigate to where you extracted the files (like typing cd /home/softpedia/pocl-0.10). Next up: run ./configure && make. This sets everything up! Finally, type sudomake install, and you're good to go!