BOINC on Same Machine Different OS?

Message boards : Number crunching : BOINC on Same Machine Different OS?
Message board moderation

To post messages, you must log in.

AuthorMessage
Profile cRunchy
Volunteer moderator
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 3 Apr 99
Posts: 3555
Credit: 1,920,030
RAC: 3
United Kingdom
Message 1889796 - Posted: 14 Sep 2017, 20:28:09 UTC

At the moment I run SETI on my living room PC. (Win7 Quad Core x64 12GB Memory - Basic Office Machine. Phenom.)

(PC is always on but I only use this PC for SETI and some browsing or light office or media.)

All is well atm but SETI seems to cache to the hard disk a lot. (pagefile). (It's audible.)

I was thinking as I have another unused PC exactly the same if it would be worth me putting linux on that PC and running BOINC from that headless instead?

Question is: Does BOINC hammer the disk, pagefile less in linux?
ID: 1889796 · Report as offensive
Profile Mike Special Project $75 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 17 Feb 01
Posts: 34253
Credit: 79,922,639
RAC: 80
Germany
Message 1889800 - Posted: 14 Sep 2017, 20:45:12 UTC

I have 3 different OSès installed on my PC.
Win 7, Win 10 and Linux Mint 18.2.
Linux might swap a little less on the hard drive but i can tell you when running seti you will see not much difference because seti app writes a checkpoint every minute to HDD.

I can`t hear my PC, its also in my living room, so i would rather suggest to buy an other hard drive.
On Linux i`m using an external USB 3 HDD for example.


With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.
ID: 1889800 · Report as offensive
rob smith Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $75 donorSpecial Project $250 donor
Volunteer moderator
Volunteer tester

Send message
Joined: 7 Mar 03
Posts: 22158
Credit: 416,307,556
RAC: 380
United Kingdom
Message 1889801 - Posted: 14 Sep 2017, 20:50:16 UTC

Given your GPU and memory SETI shouldn't be hitting the disk hard or often. Check the "checkpoint" time (under advanced/options/computing preferences.

The default time is 60 seconds, try winding up to say 120 or even 180 seconds and see if that helps.
Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?
ID: 1889801 · Report as offensive
Profile cRunchy
Volunteer moderator
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 3 Apr 99
Posts: 3555
Credit: 1,920,030
RAC: 3
United Kingdom
Message 1889833 - Posted: 14 Sep 2017, 22:41:54 UTC - in response to Message 1889801.  

Given your GPU and memory SETI shouldn't be hitting the disk hard or often. Check the "checkpoint" time (under advanced/options/computing preferences.

The default time is 60 seconds, try winding up to say 120 or even 180 seconds and see if that helps.



I've taken your advice and changed the checkpoint to 120 seconds.

These are solid little SFF machines but the noise (repetitive every second) whilst BOINC is running tells me either the drive is caching or the fan is altering speed.

(I have opened and dusted it.)

I am however thinking that it might be a good thing to try a linux setup. (This will leave my livingroom PC free to be switched on or off as I please.)

I prefer a basic visual GUI environments and don't like leaving a machine single use. (So in linux I might want to do a little compiling for Android.. Once in a while.)

Anybody can suggest a basic linux distribution that has a simple GUI that leaves as much memory for BOINC but allows for a point and click person like me?

I've used Ubuntu, slack etc..

Just looking for something that leaves as much memory and CPU for BOINC as possible but allows me to do the odd extra thing?
ID: 1889833 · Report as offensive
rob smith Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $75 donorSpecial Project $250 donor
Volunteer moderator
Volunteer tester

Send message
Joined: 7 Mar 03
Posts: 22158
Credit: 416,307,556
RAC: 380
United Kingdom
Message 1889878 - Posted: 15 Sep 2017, 5:57:38 UTC

I'm running Mint 18.x on all three of my Linux machines, one has only 8GB of RAM. I also run it on another machine with 8GB of RAM from a 16GB USB stick with no memory problems. Linux appears to be more memory efficient that Windows, but does like to have its swap file the same size as the RAM.
One thought - AV software having a prod?
Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?
ID: 1889878 · Report as offensive
TBar
Volunteer tester

Send message
Joined: 22 May 99
Posts: 5204
Credit: 840,779,836
RAC: 2,768
United States
Message 1889965 - Posted: 15 Sep 2017, 17:11:27 UTC - in response to Message 1889833.  

These are solid little SFF machines...

It would also depend on the GPU in the target machine. Your listed machine has a old low end ATI card. For older ATI cards, pre-HD7750, you will need to use an older version of Linux if you want to use the older ATI GPUs for SETI. The last version of Ubuntu I can use for my HD 6800 series comes on the 14.04.1 Install Image. That image will install kernel 3.13 which works with the older ATI drivers. This machine is using the OS installed from the Ubuntu 14.04.1 installer, https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8097309 It's also running the SETI Apps I compiled myself, although the Stock SETI Apps will also work...just not as well ;-)
ID: 1889965 · Report as offensive
Profile Jord
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 9 Jun 99
Posts: 15184
Credit: 4,362,181
RAC: 3
Netherlands
Message 1890020 - Posted: 15 Sep 2017, 20:28:02 UTC - in response to Message 1889801.  

The default time is 60 seconds, try winding up to say 120 or even 180 seconds and see if that helps.
I've tested that, it doesn't matter. The application ignores the preference setting.

This was before:
15/09/2017 22:12:29 | SETI@home | [checkpoint] result blc05_2bit_guppi_57903_48954_HIP9598_0008.15227.818.24.47.10.vlar_0 checkpointed
15/09/2017 22:13:35 | SETI@home | [checkpoint] result blc05_2bit_guppi_57903_48954_HIP9598_0008.15227.818.24.47.10.vlar_0 checkpointed
15/09/2017 22:14:40 | SETI@home | [checkpoint] result blc05_2bit_guppi_57903_48954_HIP9598_0008.15227.818.24.47.10.vlar_0 checkpointed
15/09/2017 22:15:46 | SETI@home | [checkpoint] result blc05_2bit_guppi_57903_48954_HIP9598_0008.15227.818.24.47.10.vlar_0 checkpointed

Then I set mine to 120 seconds, but it's still doing this:
15/09/2017 22:16:51 | SETI@home | [checkpoint] result blc05_2bit_guppi_57903_48954_HIP9598_0008.15227.818.24.47.10.vlar_0 checkpointed
15/09/2017 22:17:57 | SETI@home | [checkpoint] result blc05_2bit_guppi_57903_48954_HIP9598_0008.15227.818.24.47.10.vlar_0 checkpointed
15/09/2017 22:19:03 | SETI@home | [checkpoint] result blc05_2bit_guppi_57903_48954_HIP9598_0008.15227.818.24.47.10.vlar_0 checkpointed
15/09/2017 22:20:08 | SETI@home | [checkpoint] result blc05_2bit_guppi_57903_48954_HIP9598_0008.15227.818.24.47.10.vlar_0 checkpointed
15/09/2017 22:21:13 | SETI@home | [checkpoint] result blc05_2bit_guppi_57903_48954_HIP9598_0008.15227.818.24.47.10.vlar_0 checkpointed

So still checkpointing every 65 seconds or thereabout.

@TBar, the Radeon HD 2300/2400/3200/4200 don't do OpenCL. I think to remember that to use the beta OpenCL some of the HD 4000 series could use, you needed at minimum a 4350.
ID: 1890020 · Report as offensive
Profile Kissagogo27 Special Project $75 donor
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 6 Nov 99
Posts: 715
Credit: 8,032,827
RAC: 62
France
Message 1890169 - Posted: 16 Sep 2017, 14:20:38 UTC

with a HD4350 ,it takes more than 9h to crunch a GPU WU :'D
ID: 1890169 · Report as offensive

Message boards : Number crunching : BOINC on Same Machine Different OS?


 
©2024 University of California
 
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.