add installation-time tests to install_spack_env.sh

install_spack_env.sh

@@ -48,10 +48,12 @@ fi
 # activate environment
 cp $EBRAINS_REPO/spack.yaml $SPACK_ROOT/var/spack/environments/$EBRAINS_SPACK_ENV/spack.yaml
 spack env activate $EBRAINS_SPACK_ENV
-# remove any existing concrete specs from spack.lock and re-concretize everything
-spack concretize --fresh --force
+# There is a known spack bug (https://github.com/spack/spack/issues/29447) in installing test dependencies
+# for installation tests. The workaround suggested in the issue is to NOT concretize separately, but simply
+# remove the .lock file and let the enironment be concretized by the spack install command:
+rm $SPACK_ROOT/var/spack/environments/$EBRAINS_SPACK_ENV/spack.lock || echo "No spack.lock file"
 # install the environment, use 2 jobs to reduce the amount of required RAM
-spack install --fresh --no-check-signature -y -j2
+spack install -y -j2 --fresh --no-check-signature --test root
 
 # create modules files with spack
 spack module tcl refresh -y