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CONVERTING TO LINUX

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Profile JIM

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Message 48919 - Posted: 27 Apr 2014, 17:59:04 UTC

Seeing as how there is likely to be work for Linux for some time (those 60,000+ MOSES II WU�s don�t seem to be going anywhere fast) I was wondering about converting one of my Windows boxes to also run Linux in a dual boot configuration.

What I need advise on is choosing a Linux distro. THERE ARE TONS OF THEM OUT THERE. Comments would be appreciated on which ones run0 Boinc and CPDN well with a minimum of tweaking and installs of outside files, folders and Libraries. Is there one the runs CPDN well rightout of the box? Running in a Virtual Machine is OK.

Machine is presently running Win7 64 bit on a Core I5-230M, 2.61GHz with 8 GB�s of RAM.

Thanks for any help.

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MyLittleBoinc

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Message 48921 - Posted: 27 Apr 2014, 18:38:28 UTC - in response to Message 48919.  

I ran CPDN on 32-bit (not 64-bit!) Ubuntu in a VirtualBox session and it worked right out of the box. No problems at all.
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Profile JIM

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Message 48922 - Posted: 27 Apr 2014, 19:09:18 UTC - in response to Message 48921.  

I ran CPDN on 32-bit (not 64-bit!) Ubuntu in a VirtualBox session and it worked right out of the box. No problems at all.


Thanks for the advise, but, I am not sure that I want to install a 32 bit OS and throw away half of my RAM. Does anyone know of a 64 Linux distro that comes with 32 compatibly libraries already installed.
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Les Bayliss
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Message 48923 - Posted: 27 Apr 2014, 19:28:02 UTC - in response to Message 48919.  

Jim

Perhaps you should have a look at computer magazines - they often have a dvd on the front with one of the more common varieties of Linux. These often/usually run "off the disk", so you can try it before you install. That way you can try various types to see what each one is like. And most are for 32 bit Linux, so you won't have the hassle of missing libraries.

Mint's good. It's based on Ubuntu, but without some of the things that people didn't like about the way that Ubuntu was going. And Ubuntu is the version that the Linux version of BOINC is based on/tested with.
Install is very Windows like: answer a few questions, and then you get a set of install options. The first allows you to wipe the disk and start again. One of the others lets you install alongside whatever is already there.
After that, it will get on with it.

If you want 32 bit compatibility, I think that it's DIY.
Apart from which, some of the cpdn model(s) need an old version of one of the files. Especially for the graphics. THAT'S what all of the problems are about.

Even if you just look at several 32 bit distros, you'll be able to see what they look like without even installing, or running BOINC.


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Eirik Redd

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Message 48924 - Posted: 27 Apr 2014, 20:10:24 UTC

Agree with what Les wrote.
Also agree that running in a Virtualbox is a viable option - you will have to leave some memory for the host OS, and the virtual disk will be slower, but my experience has been that this slows cpdn tasks very little. Running in virtual machine is much simpler than getting dual-boot working. I just fired up a 32-bit linux (crunchbang) in a virtualbox on a 64-bit linux host as test, took less than 10 minutes for the install and is now downloading updates. Test box has 6GB memory and 8GB disk -- hehe.
But I won't recommend crunchbang for new linux users, BOINC and some of the system libraries are way old.
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Profile Greg van Paassen

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Message 48927 - Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 0:23:56 UTC - in response to Message 48922.  

I ran CPDN on 32-bit (not 64-bit!) Ubuntu in a VirtualBox session and it worked right out of the box. No problems at all.


Thanks for the advise, but, I am not sure that I want to install a 32 bit OS and throw away half of my RAM. Does anyone know of a 64 Linux distro that comes with 32 compatibly libraries already installed.

Jim, most current 32-bit Linux distributions can use all the RAM available (up to 64GB) because of a feature called PAE. Certainly all of the popular distros have PAE.

For example, I am running 32-bit Ubuntu on a box with 12 GB of RAM, and all of the RAM is being used.

PAE should in theory slow down the box, but if it does, the effect is not very noticeable - less than half a percent difference running CPDN work. 32 bit Linux is another 1% or 2% slower than 64-bit, but with a 32-bit system you don't have the hassle of manually installing the correct 32-bit libraries, and losing CPDN models until you get it right.

I agree with Les: Mint is best if your Linux install is going to be used for various things. But if your box is dedicated to CPDN work (or BOINC work in general), I'd recommend 32 bit Lubuntu. Lubuntu is Ubuntu with the 'LXDE' desktop, which is very light on system resources, so it leaves more CPU for CPDN to use. LXDE is similar to Windows 95 or 98 in how it "feels". (It looks a bit more modern, though.) Lubuntu is based on Ubuntu, so you will get security updates for it. For most people it's easier to set up than Crunchbang (which is even more lightweight, but is kind of a "hot-rod" distribution - you have to be an enthusiast to want to drive it).

I also agree with Eirik and Les about using a virtual machine. If you have lots of RAM, set up a virtual machine with a few GB of RAM (0.75 GB to 1 GB per virtual processor) and maybe 50 GB of disk, and install Lubuntu in that. The performance penalty of the VM compared to "bare metal" is maybe 1% or 2%, but you gain a lot of flexibility.

So all up, with Lubuntu 32 bit in a VirtualBox virtual machine, you lose maybe 2% - 5% of the power of the CPU, but you gain the time spent setting up and using a dual-boot environment (shutting down and rebooting), you gain peace of mind, and you gain the ability to move that virtual machine to another box if you wish. You don't lose the use of any of your RAM - if 1GB per virtual processor isn't enough, simply increase the amount of RAM allocated to the virtual machine.

Oh: the direct answer to your question is: no, I don't think so. Not a distribution that updates them reliably after version upgrades. That's why I'm using a 32 bit distribution - thrice bitten, fourth time shy.
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Ingleside

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Message 48931 - Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 7:01:07 UTC - in response to Message 48927.  

I agree with Les: Mint is best if your Linux install is going to be used for various things. But if your box is dedicated to CPDN work (or BOINC work in general), I'd recommend 32 bit Lubuntu. Lubuntu is Ubuntu with the 'LXDE' desktop, which is very light on system resources, so it leaves more CPU for CPDN to use.

If you're only going to run CPDN under Linux using a 32-bit version is possibly the best option. But if you're also expecting other projects will be run, either due to your choise or as a backup for next time CPDN is out of work or has server-problems and can't get any new work, a 32-bit Linux doesn't look like a good choise, since for some BOINC-projects the 64-bit-applications has a significant speed-advantage.


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Les Bayliss
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Message 48934 - Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 8:46:08 UTC

That's a thought, but with dual boot, Jim can just switch to Windows when cpdn is out of work and run other projects with that.
Unless he catches the Linux bug, and doesn't want to switch back. :)

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Profile Iain Inglis
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Message 48938 - Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 11:40:55 UTC

The WUBI Ubuntu installer works well for me, as a compromise between a virtual machine and a proper dual-boot, though it's not happy with Windows 8 last time I looked (but then neither am I).
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Profile tullio

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Message 48940 - Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 11:44:58 UTC

I am running SuSE 32-bit Linux on a box with 8 GB RAM. It is running Test4Theory@home which needs the installation of Virtual Box, CPDN and SETI@home Astropulse only. But it also has a Solaris Virtual Machine with 2 GB RAM, very rarely used because there are no BOINC applications on Solaris, and a Ubuntu 12.04 Virtual Machine with 1 GB RAM. This has Virtual Box installed and runs only Test4Theory@home, which needs only 256 MB RAM. So most of the RAM of the host box is still free.
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Profile Dave Jackson
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Message 48941 - Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 11:47:54 UTC

though it's not happy with Windows 8 last time I looked (but then neither am I).


Following the long tradition of alternate windows versions being good!

I have found it gets progressively easier to sort out my linux installation for cpdn after a re-install and to be honest, I would rather install linux from scratch than windows these days but then I have only installed the latter once this century and not on one of my own boxes.
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Ingleside

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Message 48944 - Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 12:58:45 UTC - in response to Message 48934.  

That's a thought, but with dual boot, Jim can just switch to Windows when cpdn is out of work and run other projects with that.

Well, atleast in my experience, a project going down always happens at the wrong time, example 15 minutes before you're increasing the cache-size from 0.1 days to 5 days, or 5 minutes after leaving in the morning so computer can sit idle for many hours during the day if don't have a backup-project.

Even with "lots of work" cached for CPDN, how many bad batches has CPDN released over the years, crashing after a few seconds in a run? Not to forget, while all Hadam3p-variants for years was probably the most stable models, after PNW released a new version (AFAIK not even bothered beta-tested) all PNW-models has in my experience had a 100% error-rate. (and as a bonus these crashes has filled-up the hd leading to also the other models crapping-out due to no free disk space).

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Message 48950 - Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 18:08:52 UTC - in response to Message 48940.  

... there are no BOINC applications on Solaris ...

Didn't someone create a Solaris binary for SIMAP? Currently I cannot check it, SIMAP seems to have a downtime.

Dotsch provides BOINC for Solaris plus a SETI project client plus DotschUX, a preBOINCified Linux distribution
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Message 48956 - Posted: 29 Apr 2014, 6:07:36 UTC - in response to Message 48950.  

... there are no BOINC applications on Solaris ...

Didn't someone create a Solaris binary for SIMAP? Currently I cannot check it, SIMAP seems to have a downtime.

Dotsch provides BOINC for Solaris plus a SETI project client plus DotschUX, a preBOINCified Linux distribution

Yes, I have a BOINC client 6.12.24 by Dotsch on my Solaris but I don't get any SETI@home v7.07 app. Same for Test4Theory@home. It's a pity, since Solaris is a very solid OS.
Tullio
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Message 48964 - Posted: 29 Apr 2014, 13:21:03 UTC

Last night I set up Ubuntu 14.04 in VMWare Player on one machine. Linux is a bit tricky, with me being used to Windows all my life. That being said, the "floodgates" (so to speak) will be opened up for this app once a Windows version is released! Hopefully that is in the works?
Regards,
Bob P.
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Message 48965 - Posted: 29 Apr 2014, 13:25:39 UTC - in response to Message 48964.  

Last night I set up Ubuntu 14.04 in VMWare Player on one machine. Linux is a bit tricky, with me being used to Windows all my life. That being said, the "floodgates" (so to speak) will be opened up for this app once a Windows version is released! Hopefully that is in the works?

Theregister.co.uk signals some boot failures in this Ubuntu release. You might read it to learn what to do.
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Profile Dave Jackson
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Message 48969 - Posted: 29 Apr 2014, 17:39:51 UTC

14.04 is running fine for me and has been since alpha. :)

I wonder what, "a small number of power users (which I am not) means?
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Message 48970 - Posted: 29 Apr 2014, 18:46:30 UTC - in response to Message 48969.  

14.04 is running fine for me and has been since alpha. :)

I wonder what, "a small number of power users (which I am not) means?

Probably means "early adopters". I am still using Ubuntu 12.04 on my Virtual Machine, but I have downloaded 14.04 and was interested in learning if it has any problem. I am using SuSE Linux 13.1 on my main host and 12.3 on a laptop, so I am nor really an expert on Ubuntu. I had installed Ubunto 13.10 first but when I found an Amazon icon on it, I reverted to 12.04.
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Profile JIM

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Message 49016 - Posted: 1 May 2014, 22:07:10 UTC

Thanks for the advise. I still have about 10 days to think it over as that�s how much Windows work I still have to finish first.

One thing I am concerned about are these reports that if the hadam3pm2 model is stopped the next zip file is omitted and the model crashes. Having to keep my machine running for 200+ hours could get to be a real problem. I tend to reboot about once a week.

As long as there is work for Windows I may wait until that is sorted our.

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Les Bayliss
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Message 49023 - Posted: 2 May 2014, 20:00:39 UTC - in response to Message 49016.  

Jim

No need to hurry now. The models have been rushed into intensive care.

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