Ubuntu install help

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Profile Scott Armstrong
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Message 1102281 - Posted: 30 Apr 2011, 23:13:42 UTC

I just upgraded to the latest version of Ubuntu, and I'm trying to install SETI@Home, but it won't let me. This error appears:

gedit has not been able to detect the character encoding.
Please check that you are not trying to open a binary file.
Select a character encoding from the menu and try again.

Any help?
Please keep in mind that I am not computer literate. Please make all answers the best layman's terms you have.
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Profile Gundolf Jahn

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Message 1102382 - Posted: 1 May 2011, 8:04:59 UTC - in response to Message 1102281.  

Try preceding the install script name with "sh " in a command shell (without the quotes).

Gruß,
Gundolf
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Profile Scott Armstrong
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Message 1102513 - Posted: 1 May 2011, 18:27:20 UTC

In layman's terms, please?
Please keep in mind that I am not computer literate. Please make all answers the best layman's terms you have.
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Profile Gundolf Jahn

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Message 1102535 - Posted: 1 May 2011, 19:34:04 UTC - in response to Message 1102513.  

It's been decades that I've used unix; back then, X had just started to evolve, so I always was in non-GUI mode. Today, I believe, you have to enter a special window to enter text commands. Do so and enter
sh 'filename'
where 'filename' is the name of the installation file, probably with the suffix '.sh'

Then the installation process should be started.

Try reading up the manual pages for the different shells (Bourne, C, K, ...).

Gruß,
Gundolf
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Message 1102544 - Posted: 1 May 2011, 20:05:19 UTC - in response to Message 1102535.  

I believe he's talking about executing the /sh FILENAMEHERE.sh

try this thread... http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=39847


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Message 1102561 - Posted: 1 May 2011, 21:39:43 UTC - in response to Message 1102544.  

I'm not exactly computer literate... scratch that, not at all. I accidentally downloaded a Trojan a few months back, and Ubuntu was all a techie friend had to reinstall an OS with, so I'm completely out of my league here.
Please keep in mind that I am not computer literate. Please make all answers the best layman's terms you have.
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Message 1102572 - Posted: 1 May 2011, 21:58:09 UTC - in response to Message 1102561.  

its not really that hard. The terminology is different from windows and setting things up is as well. I suggest following an install instruction and learn to copy paste


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Message 1102597 - Posted: 1 May 2011, 23:40:34 UTC - in response to Message 1102572.  
Last modified: 1 May 2011, 23:58:56 UTC

I wouldn't be saying the things I do if it wasn't really that hard. Difficulty is in the eye of the beholder, so what's easy for you is not necessarily easy for me. I can't even manage to change the screensaver on this OS.
Please keep in mind that I am not computer literate. Please make all answers the best layman's terms you have.
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Message 1102732 - Posted: 2 May 2011, 14:17:05 UTC

Scott.A
I hope this help. I just upgraded to 11.04 Ubuntu. My SETI/BOINC install was giving me errors so I deleted my BOINC Folder from my HOME directory.
I then read the instructions I found on the forums here. I have made a thread. But I will post what I read here for you.
I have updated the file name and thats all. The whole thing in it's original form can be found: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_user_posts.php?userid=23484 - there

In Oct 2005 I started a thread on this forum entitled "How to install Seti on Linux - A newbie approach", well two years later I can say I've learned a thing or two about Linux and I found out that there are easier ways to install and configure Seti on Linux.

The intention of this thread is to help NEWBIES, or people with little or no knowledge of Linux, especially the ones trying to break free from Windows.

************************
The instructions below were performed on Ubuntu 7.10.

1 - Download Boinc for Linux from this url - http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php - and save it. Firefox will usually save the files you download to your desktop by default.

2 - Copy the file you just downloaded from your desktop to your home folder. You can accomplish this by opening your home folder - click on Places and then Home Folder. Next right click the file you have just downloaded to the desktop, select Copy and then paste it to your Home Folder.

If you have already downloaded the file to your Home Folder you can obviously skip this step.

3 - Next click on applications / accessories / terminal to open a terminal prompt.

4 - From inside the terminal prompt you can confirm if the boinc file is there by typing ls and hitting enter. You should see a list of files, including the sh boinc_6.10.58_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh file. Note that the boinc file may have a different name, such as boinc_different_version_number.sh.

4 - Still inside the terminal prompt type sh sh boinc_6.10.58_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh and hit enter. This command will create a BOINC folder and you will see the following message after it completes successfully:

use /home/yourname/Desktop/BOINC/run manager to start BOINC

5 - Next type cd BOINC and hit enter. This command will place the cursor inside the BOINC folder.

6 - From inside your BOINC folder, type ./boincmgr and hit enter.

7 - At this point you will see the Boinc Manager, click Next, enter your project URL - a list of projects will appear where you can select the URL which belongs to your then click Next again. On the next screen select if you are a New or Existing User and enter the requested email and password accordingly. Lastly click on Finish.

8 - Allow the Boinc manager to download the first set of data. This may take a while, please be patient. Once all the data has been downloaded and the manager starts to process the data file, quit it by closing the Boinc Manager window.

Next Step: Creating a cronjob to automatically start or keep your seti running:

1 - From a terminal prompt type: crontab -e and hit enter.

2 - The nano text editor will open and at the very top you will see the following line:

# m h dom mon dow command

This line is just a syntax example of a crontab command. The # at the beggining of the line indicates that this line is a comment. I strongly suggest to keep this line intact and start to enter your crontab commands on the next line.

Here are the two commands you will need to enter in your crontab file:

@reboot cd /home/YOURNAME_HERE/BOINC; ./boinc 1>>./boinclog 2>>./boincerr
*/60 * * * * cd /home/YOURNAME_HERE/BOINC; ./boinc 1>>./boinclog 2>>./boincerr

After entering these commands in the Crontab, hit Ctrl+0 to exit, then hit Enter followed by ctrl+x. This will exit the nano editor and save the crontab file.

To confirm your crontab file has been saved correctly type the following commnand in the terminal prompt: crontab -l and hit enter. This will list the contents of your actual crontab. If you want to know more about this command, type crontab alone to get a list of switches you can use with it.

Explanation of the commands in the Crontab:

The first line will start your Boinc everytime your pc reboots. The second line will attempt to start your seti every hour. This line is useful in case your seti stops for any reason. If boinc is already running this line won't stop it. Note: If you think attempting to start Boinc every 60 minutes is overkill, just change the 60 - 60 minutes - into whatever you feel comfortable with. For 2 hours use 120, for 24 hours use 1440 and so and so forth.

Both lines will log the crontab actions to a text file named boinclog and crontab errors to a text file named boincerr. Both these files will be saved in the same folder as Boinc. You can view these files by using the Gedit Text Editor using the following command from the Boinc terminal prompt: gedit boincerr or gedit boinclog. Obviously you can also read these files by open Gedit or any other text editor and navigating to the Boinc folder and selecting any of these two files.

If you open the boincerr file you must likely will see the following line at regular intervals:

Another instance of BOINC is running

Do not panic, this is ok. It only means that Crontab cannot start Boinc again as its already running, which is great.

Last but not least: Make sure the command lines in the crontab reflect the correct path where your Boinc folder is located.

IE.: @reboot cd /home/johndoe/BOINC; ./boinc 1>>./boinclog 2>>./boincerr

Where JohnDoe is the home folder name. Also do not forget that the path is case sensitive. So if your BOINC folder is in fact named boinc - with lower case - you have to enter it exactly like that.

I hope this tutorial is easier than my 2 years old post. One mistake on my old post - which was in fact a Spanish translation - is that it instructs the user to run Boinc as root, which is a big no no.

Happy crunching and welcome to the wonderful world of Linux.

*Good Luck I WILL Help You Any Way I Can*
*KETOBBEY 2011*

http://www.soundclick.com/Ketobbey
http://www.youtube.com/Ketobbey
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Message 1102747 - Posted: 2 May 2011, 15:25:32 UTC - in response to Message 1102732.  

thats an excellent tutorial. I must say its a great deal easier than the Madriva install


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Message 1102952 - Posted: 3 May 2011, 4:31:53 UTC

Thanks! Finally managed to install it.

Now if I only could figure out how to switch the screensaver to BOINC...
Please keep in mind that I am not computer literate. Please make all answers the best layman's terms you have.
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Message 1103004 - Posted: 3 May 2011, 12:17:34 UTC - in response to Message 1102952.  

I don't recall if the Linux version has a screensaver


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Message 1103582 - Posted: 5 May 2011, 14:48:41 UTC - in response to Message 1102952.  
Last modified: 5 May 2011, 14:50:43 UTC

Hey Scott!

In one of the corners of your desktop, there should be the circle with the vertical line in the top that looks like the on/off button on electronics. If you click that and wait a few seconds, you should get a menu that has "System Settings" on it. If you click that, you should get a screen that looks a whole lot like the Windows Control Panel. You should be able to change your screen saver from there.

That said, there may not be a BOINC screensaver.

From one Linux Newb to another; good luck! I am still having the devil's time mounting and getting old data off of my Archive CD and DVDs!
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Profile David Anderson (not *that* DA) Project Donor
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Message 1104125 - Posted: 7 May 2011, 15:16:12 UTC

The original question seemed to be about installing boinc.
On recent Ubuntu, just do


sudo apt-get install boinc

DavidA (not the project leader...)
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Profile David Anderson (not *that* DA) Project Donor
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Message 1104126 - Posted: 7 May 2011, 15:21:31 UTC

Recent Ubuntu running GNOME (the default unless you have kubuntu):

Screen saver: The System Menu->Preferences->ScreenSaver
will let you choose from a number of them. (I never figured out
how to get a Seti screensaver though).

Background picture: On the existing background click right-mouse
button. A panel comes up and you can choose one of the available ones
from the panel or choose any picture on your machine.

Not the Seti DavidA...
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Questions and Answers : Unix/Linux : Ubuntu install help


 
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