Hi,

I'm hoping someone can help me out here. Spent quite some time trying to figure this out but I'm stuck on where to look next or what to do.

I've been running seti for some time in Mandriva 2008.1 with a custom compiled boinc client and did a computer upgrade recently and moved to Mandriva 2009.1.

I started with the default boinc client supplied in the repositories. It seemed to be running ok I attached to the seti downloaded some WU's and went to work.

I know a custom build generates more WU done so I finally figured out all the dependencies detailed here http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/SoftwarePrereqsUnix. I was then able to build release 6.8.7 per directions here: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CompileClient under Linux heading.

So! I've got the client and manager built without error. The boinc manager displays fine and immediately launches the attach to project wizard. All good, the wizard confirms connection to the project. I close the wizard and ... Nothing. It doesn't crash. It doesn't error out. It says it connected to localhost. But all tabs except Messages and Disk are blank.

Boinc & boincmgr are both running in system monitor.

Messages section reads;
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Starting BOINC client version 6.8.7 for i686-pc-linux-gnu
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST log flags: task, file_xfer, sched_ops
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Libraries: libcurl/7.19.4 GnuTLS/2.6.4 zlib/1.2.3 c-ares/1.6.0 libidn/1.13 libssh2/1.0
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Data directory: /usr/local/share/BOINC
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Processor: 2 AuthenticAMD AMD Athlon(tm) 7750 Dual-Core Processor [Family 16 Model 2 Stepping 3]
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Processor: 512.00 KB cache
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow constant_tsc nonstop_tsc pni monitor cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic c
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST OS: Linux: 2.6.29.6-desktop-1mnb
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Memory: 1.73 GB physical, 2.01 GB virtual
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Disk: 71.93 GB total, 64.16 GB free
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Local time is UTC +8 hours
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce 8300 (driver version 0, compute capability 1.1, 254MB, est. 4GFLOPS)
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Not using a proxy
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST No general preferences found - using BOINC defaults
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Preferences limit memory usage when active to 885.61MB
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Preferences limit memory usage when idle to 1594.09MB
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Preferences limit disk usage to 4.29GB
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST This computer is not attached to any projects
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:01 WST Visit http://boinc.berkeley.edu for instructions
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:22 WST Fetching configuration file from http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/get_project_config.php
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:46:52 WST Fetching configuration file from http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/get_project_config.php
Wed 22 Jul 2009 22:52:20 WST Fetching configuration file from http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/get_project_config.php
Thu 23 Jul 2009 18:57:44 WST Fetching configuration file from http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/get_project_config.php

Just canceled the boincmgr with system monitor in the background and noticed the network activity drop to zero? Had been static on 1KB/s except for when I was using the internet.

So I reran the attach project wizard and there's network spikes as you would expect in the right places but when you click finish on the wizard it goes static on 1 KB/s until it's turned off.

I get the following on the command line when I close the manager;
SIGSEGV: segmentation violation
Stack trace (5 frames):
./boincmgr(boinc_catch_signal+0x64)[0x8183f14]
[0xffffe400]
/lib/i686/libc.so.6(__freelocale+0x39)[0xb75d3799]
./boincmgr[0x807b13c]
/usr/lib/libwx_base-2.8.so.0(_ZN16wxThreadInternal12PthreadStartEP8wxThread+0xf1)[0xb79b8f81]

So I would appreciate any assistance, pointers, hints, thoughts and what not, as I'm out of all of those.

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Dotsch may have answers for you. He's the linux BOINC guru around here.

A suggestion. Try emailing the BOINC dev team. The 6.8.7 is beta at best alpha at worst. This sounds like something they should porbably either know about or need to know about. Alpha and beta build users are asked to report problems with the build so that they can either fix it or figure out what happened with your install.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

6.8.7 is an Alpha and it has its whole own list to report errors to. I am not going to give that one out here, as it is this simple: if you don't know where to post errors and problems with the program to, you shouldn't be using 6.8

I was then able to build release 6.8.7 per directions here: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CompileClient under Linux heading.

You picked up the wrong source code. Instead of using branch 6.8, you should be using branch 6.6a or just trunk.

And then email problems to the BOINC Alpha email list (requires registration), or post them on the BOINC Dev forums (requires separate registration from these forums).

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Thankyou for your responses.

Last time I did this it wasn't so difficult? Compiled, replaced the boinc executable and away it went.

Alright I have 6.6 and 6.6a. I've retried 6.6a but it complains that it's being built as a 'statically linked release build.' I looked for how to change this but decided best to just install the client from the repositories and at least be doing something while I get that sorted.

So I've installed 6.6.1 from the Mandriva 2009.1 repositories.
Also a development release yeah?

Bit closer. At least it joins the project and lists it on the projects page. Messages page shows: SETI@home|Message from server: platform 'i586-mandriva-linux-gnu' not found

Only reference I could find was to a missing app_info.xml file which is missing, but also missing on two other machines happily running the client app.
I guess that's old news then!

Or should I be posting this to the boinc dev forum?

Dakin

Alright I have 6.6 and 6.6a.

Don't use 6.6, it's been deprecated. 6.6a is the present development branch with all the latest changes.

I've retried 6.6a but it complains that it's being built as a 'statically linked release build.'

Sorry, but what were you expecting then? That it said it was going to make a debug version? Are all the libraries used by BOINC, e.g. libcurl, zlib, openssl, wxwidgets and sqlite3 up-to-date? Do you have the graphics libraries?

So I've installed 6.6.1 from the Mandriva 2009.1 repositories.
Also a development release yeah?

Yes, but quite an old one. I wouldn't be using that one, then you can better get 6.6.36 from the BOINC download site.

Bit closer. At least it joins the project and lists it on the projects page. Messages page shows: SETI@home|Message from server: platform 'i586-mandriva-linux-gnu' not found

That's because one can't expect of Seti to have a science application for each distro of Linux out there, no matter how obscure. So Seti (and most other projects) has generic Linux applications.

The way BOINC works is that it looks at the name of your platform in its own start-up string. For me that shows as "Starting BOINC client version 6.6.38 for windows_intelx86", for you it probably shows at "Starting BOINC client version 6.6.1 for i586-mandriva-linux-gnu". So that's the platform it will look for to download an application for from Seti. Seti won't have that, they only got these, which show no name of the distro. So you could probably get the app if your start-up message showed "i586-linux-gnu".

And so the way around that is to use the anonymous platform, or 3rd party binary with app_info.xml file. These you have to install yourself, they won't be downloaded by BOINC. The information in the app_info.xml file overrides any detection done by BOINC, instead tells BOINC what applications to use.

It's possible you need to check the Mandriva package manager again for their version of the Seti Enhanced (Multibeam) and Astropulse applications. Or else use third party apps, such as those from Crunch3r.

Or should I be posting this to the boinc dev forum?

Perhaps how to get past the statically linked release build, if that's worrying you. Although our resident Linux building moderator is on vacation until Thursday. ;-)

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Understood on the 6.6

Sorry, but what were you expecting then? That it said it was going to make a debug version? Are all the libraries used by BOINC, e.g. libcurl, zlib, openssl, wxwidgets and sqlite3 up-to-date? Do you have the graphics libraries?

Well, no. From what it said I figured dynamic linking was preferable and it would simply be a switch?
Libcurl-1.19.4
zlib - 1.2.3
openssl - 0.9.8k
wxwidgets - 2.8.10 - custom static (WXGTK2.8 - 2.8.9 from repo)
sqlite3 - libsqlite3_0 + libsqlite3-devel both 3.6.15
I have no package called sqlite to install?
only packages prefixed by PHP etc?
?? not mentioned on any dependencies.
X11 - libxorg-x11-devel & static-devel 7.3
/usr/lib/include conatins a full X11 directory..
GL GLU - libmesagl1-devel, libmesaglu1 packages both 7.3
jpeglib - libjpeg62 version 6b


6.6.36 running nicely.

No I fully get that on Seti not being able to cater for every machine out there and now the app_config.xml file makes a whole lot of sense. I guess the 'i586-mandriva-linux-gnu' is built into the binaries. It's disappointing to see such an incomplete product put into the release of Mandriva could've provided the config file at least. If I recall the 2008.1 version of boinc just run out of the box.

No mention of Seti or astropulse apps in the repositories that I can see, maybe in others I don't have registered? Don't know.

I would like to build the app myself, as there was a fair increase in production the last time I built it. No rush though.

How do the above package details look? Have not understood something on the prerequisites. Must admit I hadn't looked at the GL GLU GLUT before don't know why the BOINC Manager isn't a 'graphic app' or is that solely for the screen saver?

Appreciate it. Thanks heaps.

Dakin

Libcurl-1.19.4
zlib - 1.2.3
openssl - 0.9.8k
wxwidgets - 2.8.10 - custom static (WXGTK2.8 - 2.8.9 from repo)
sqlite3 - libsqlite3_0 + libsqlite3-devel both 3.6.15
I have no package called sqlite to install?
only packages prefixed by PHP etc?
?? not mentioned on any dependencies.
X11 - libxorg-x11-devel & static-devel 7.3
/usr/lib/include conatins a full X11 directory..
GL GLU - libmesagl1-devel, libmesaglu1 packages both 7.3
jpeglib - libjpeg62 version 6b

These all look good. There is no package for sqlite, it is called sqlite3. BOINC Manager uses it.

No I fully get that on Seti not being able to cater for every machine out there and now the app_config.xml file makes a whole lot of sense. I guess the 'i586-mandriva-linux-gnu' is built into the binaries. It's disappointing to see such an incomplete product put into the release of Mandriva could've provided the config file at least. If I recall the 2008.1 version of boinc just run out of the box.

I agree, but you'll have to take that up with whomever is responsible for keeping the Mandriva repositories up-to-date. It's not something Seti or BOINC is responsible for.

How do the above package details look? Have not understood something on the prerequisites. Must admit I hadn't looked at the GL GLU GLUT before don't know why the BOINC Manager isn't a 'graphic app' or is that solely for the screen saver?

As I said, they look good. Well up-to-date.
The GL/U/UT packages are used for the OpenGL screen saver, which runs from the client. I think the devs fixed it so that since some version of 6.6 the Linux screen saver also works, if only the one built into the client, not necessarily the project ones.

Now, I must say I am feeling my way through helping out on specific things for Linux. I'm a 'doze boy. So you could still come over to the BOINC Dev forums and ask all the more technical questions there, then I can even get one of the developers to come check in.

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As I said, they look good. Well up-to-date.

Ok that's good.

The GL/U/UT packages are used for the OpenGL screen saver, which runs from the client. I think the devs fixed it so that since some version of 6.6 the Linux screen saver also works, if only the one built into the client, not necessarily the project ones.

Oh fine, wouldn't be using the screen saver anyway.

Now, I must say I am feeling my way through helping out on specific things for Linux. I'm a 'doze boy. So you could still come over to the BOINC Dev forums and ask all the more technical questions there, then I can even get one of the developers to come check in.

Sounds like the go.
I appreciate your assistance.

Dakin

Just thought I'd drop another note in here.

Hang it I thought I let it compile through the messages previously stated. It finished compiling even stating cannot find static libraries so it used dynamic instead.
Ran make. dropped the executables in place of my running boinc and it just kept on running.
CPU benchmarks showed negligible change;

Custom compiled 6.6.37
Number of CPUs: 2
1498 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
4302 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

Original 6.6.36
Number of CPUs: 2
1510 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
4246 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

Would compiling a custom Seti produce much change do you think?
If not I'll just go with what I have.

Dakin

The benchmarks aren't really used here at Seti. Tasks here are crunched using a floating point operations estimate.

And even if you ran the benchmarks 10 times after each other (Advanced->Run benchmarks), they'd come out different all the time. It depends on what else the CPU is doing at the time, how hot it is, did a cosmic particle pass through it at that time, was and alien death-ray pointed at it?

So I wouldn't stare myself to death on those numbers. As long as they're about the same, it's cool. There are other changes in the client, though. You may want to check the Trunk Change Log and Alpha Change Log threads on that.

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