So what are the recommendations for a) desktop and b) install version of Ununtu?
What do I need to do to turn the ISO into a bootable USB?

Hi Stephen,
From my point of view, the easiest version to use and configure is Ubuntu with Gnome. I really not recommend Fedora, which I am using, because it is too hard to configure. Moreover, Ubuntu has a very important and reactive community.

In order to burn your USB key, I will suggest you to use rufus and keep default options.
Cheers

. . Hi GuL

. . Thanks for the suggestion. I decided to try out Ubuntu with the Mate desktop and I imaged it to the 16GB drive. I then used it successfully to boot another rig. There were a couple of errors during the boot process, about file lengths from what I could glean before it moved on, but it booted successfully. I think I might get to like it. None of the usual c%^p where all manner of things try to demand control of the PC. I realise there will be a lot of wrinkles to iron out hardware wise. It does not auto-detect things the way Windows does. But I dare say, if there is enough support, once they are sorted it should be pretty smooth, and as an OS for a cruncher it seems pretty ideal.

Stephen

:)

Greetings Stephen

Yes there are many flavours, but after trying a few, ie, Debian OS, Mint KDE, Mint Ubuntu (Mate and Cinnamon) and a couple of other flavours that have dropped out of the Distrowatch Top 10.

Back on track, I used a program called Universal USB Installer, to make a bootable usb Linux installer, which I found at

https://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

Instructions are on the website.

Personaly, I use Mint 18.1 Cinnamon edition, (I have it on a spare HDD for when I want to try it out again) but that is my choice. (I am still having trouble breaking away from Windows 7) lol.

Another thing I learnt is that is when you have two NVIDIA cards in the same system, only connect the 2nd once your system up and running with the NVIDIA drivers.

Have fun.

Mark

PS, I ended up with 2 x GTX 960's and a GTX 780 in my systems, the 1050's didnt make it lol. Oh the GTX 580 is a part timer cruncher nowadays.

. . Hi Mark

. . I actually used Rufus which was recommended first and settled on Ubuntu with the Mate desktop. But I was sorely tempted to try the Mint with Cinnamon (apparently the most popular desktop for mint) possibly because of the food lover in me :)

. . One very nice thing about linux is that you can boot from the flash drive and check out how it runs on your system before committing to full installation. I have another 16GB flash drive (but only USB 2.0) so I might d/l Mint-Cinnamon and give that a try as well. The best way to decide is to check them both out and see which I prefer.

. . Thanks for that pointer about not installing both GPUs until the drivers are sorted out, otherwise that is exactly what I would have done.

. . While I think the 1050ti's would have been very rewarding, they are very close to the 960s in productivity but use slightly less power, I am guessing the "price was right". So all in all I think you should have some very good crunchers out of this.

Stephen

:)

Making a bootable USB from an ISO seems pointless to me (unless you don't have a DVD) just burn the ISO to a DVD, it's just the install disk (and usually a test run of the package). You won't be able to save anything anyways until you actually install the OS to a drive or USB -after you have a bootable disk made from an ISO.

Grab any old drive, or USB to test it out on your current hardware with a dual boot. And yea, 16G is enough.

The main OS's people are using seem to be Ubuntu or Mint (keep away from v16, use 14 ... I think it is the same for Mint) Crimson seems to be a Mint choice, I used, LOL I forget for Ubuntu. It was ubuntu-14.04.5-desktop-amd64.iso Google will find it.

The OS itself is very simple to get use to, but for me not as a daily computer. Sorry I just don't care for the MAC OSX look.

The ONLY thing I don't like about Ubuntu is the BOINC version 7.2 which doesn't have process priority control so you have to be careful not to work the CPU too hard and starve the GPUs. So yea I could probably get more out of Mint, which I do plan on at least testing.

It's easy to install and get running on SETI 'stock' in probably a little over 30 minutes without having to know anything about computers. From there it's manually adding the app files, setting permission, make an app_info, and your off. Not really a big deal. Ohh if it's a cruncher only, set auto login at install - it's just easier.

. . Hi Brent,

. . It seems fools rush in. The site didn't offer a 14.n version, I don't think, (but then I was looking for 14.10) so I went with 16.10. Is there a problem with this version? I ran it as a test on my C2D and it ran quite well, though I can see there will be a lot of manual intervention to get the hardware configuration right, unless that just sorts itself out during the actual installation to hard drive. It is Ubuntu with the Mate desktop. But I am thinking of giving Mint with Cinnamon a try. It is easy enough to do, all I need is another flash drive and I have several of those. Hey I might try every flavour and see what kind of taste they leave in my mouth <boom-tish>. Sorry about the bad pun.

. . When I settle on the version I intend to use I might burn that image to a DVD for "posterity". Just as a backup. Anything on a flash drive while running/installing quicker is essentially only temporary.

. . But please, tell me more about this issue with BOINC 7.2 which can overload CPUs and leave GPUs without work? For me the whole point of going to Linux is to maximise the GPU productivity.

Stephen

??

I am running SuSE Leap 42.2 on an old SUN WS with only 8 GB RAM and both SETI and SETI Beta run on it. There is a GTX 750 GPU board and its driver has recently been updated by SuSE, which frequently sends me updates asking me if I want to install them, not like Microsoft on my Windows 10 PC where I have no control over updates, except the GPU board updates, which I get from Geforce. It is a Palit GTX 1050.
Tullio

. . Ciao Tullio,

. . I had not considered SuSE, and I have trialled Ubuntu with the Mate desktop, which seems OK. But since you can trial each OS without committing to an actual installation I am thinking of lining up all my flashdrives and trying out each of them one by one until I find the "flavour" that I like the most. And boy do I know what you mean about Windows 10. MS are the most smug, self centred batch of (*&(*&9's you can imagine, and I suspect my neighbours think I turrettes because of the vehement strings of expletives that emanate from my computer room every time MS do one of their "enforced" updates and screw up my computers forcing me to redo things to get them functional again. I am so sick of things being stuffed up because of some bloody update that I didn't even want but was shoved onto me by MS.

. . Have fun

Stephen

:)

Greetings Stephen

Glad to hear things are on the up with your linux builds.

I was bit slow it getting a download of the Petri Special, so I will have to wait till they release it again.

Good luck and happy crunching.

Regards
Mark

Well with v7.2 (EDIT: In Ubuntu by default) there is no process_priority flag in cc_config, so you can't run GPU tasks with a higher priority - that I know of so far. Remember there is no -hp option at least in what I'm running.

So for me with a 1070 + 980 I still leave 2 cores free for those task since running 3 CPU tasks I can see the GPU temps drop a little and runtime go up a bit ... So that extra core still does have an effect even though the CPU isn't fully loaded with the small amount the GPU's require ... BUT when the GPU wants CPU time, it wants it NOW to keep full.

Not really a big deal, I could run 1 more CPU task, but it's better off to keep the GPUs full.

I'm just finishing a USB install myself to get some extra tasks for the maintenance that lasts 3-4 times longer than my cache so I'm gonna run a batch off USB to compare. Then I can play around with trying to compile an updated BOINC without screwing up my drive.

EDIT: BTW, read up on how to remove the default video drives and install the NVIDIA ones, it's easy to do, and it has to be done.

AND ... I don't think you will get Ubuntu 16 working.

Greetings Stephen

Glad to hear things are on the up with your linux builds.

I was bit slow it getting a download of the Petri Special, so I will have to wait till they release it again.

Good luck and happy crunching.

Regards
Mark

. . I am just sorting out the OS but I have all the bits and need to remove my digit and get building. I look forward to getting it operational.

. . Even more so to seeing how the Special Sauce spices up a pair of GTX970s.

Stephen

:)

Well with v7.2 (EDIT: In Ubuntu by default) there is no process_priority flag in cc_config, so you can't run GPU tasks with a higher priority - that I know of so far. Remember there is no -hp option at least in what I'm running.

So for me with a 1070 + 980 I still leave 2 cores free for those task since running 3 CPU tasks I can see the GPU temps drop a little and runtime go up a bit ... So that extra core still does have an effect even though the CPU isn't fully loaded with the small amount the GPU's require ... BUT when the GPU wants CPU time, it wants it NOW to keep full.

Not really a big deal, I could run 1 more CPU task, but it's better off to keep the GPUs full.

I'm just finishing a USB install myself to get some extra tasks for the maintenance that lasts 3-4 times longer than my cache so I'm gonna run a batch off USB to compare. Then I can play around with trying to compile an updated BOINC without screwing up my drive.

EDIT: BTW, read up on how to remove the default video drives and install the NVIDIA ones, it's easy to do, and it has to be done.

AND ... I don't think you will get Ubuntu 16 working.

. . Hi Brent,

. . I notice that you are not running Hyperthreading, is that because Linux does not support it or because you choose not to? That is the choice I would make as I feel that it will give better results despite others saying the opposite. But have you tried running with hyperthreading on? I am curious about how it would affect the productivity.

. . It was my intention to run only 2 CPU tasks in the initial setup, and then if it looked like there was room to squeeze some more out of it I would try 3. I will probably still do that but with a critical eye to see if I get the same decrease in GPU utilisation that you have experienced.

. . As for the outages far exceeding cache capacities have you considered MrKevvy's rescheduling thread ? There may be some help for you there.

. . I have seen an earlier message referring to the need to remove the default linux Nvidia drivers which do not support Seti and to install the proper Nvidia drivers. So thanks for reminding me, it will go on the list.

. . OK, as far as version 16.10 goes I guess I will have to go back and get 14.04, but then I will make a point of that also when getting Mint-Cinnamon.

Stephen

:)

. . I have seen an earlier message referring to the need to remove the default linux Nvidia drivers which do not support Seti and to install the proper Nvidia drivers. So thanks for reminding me, it will go on the list.

It will go on the list??

LOL without BOINC recognizing the cards you are wasting time ... It IS the LIST :D

BTW if you have Linux running, install gkrellm and psensors from the Ubuntu Software Center - your gonna ask for them anyways, so now you know, LOL. And the system monitor should already be there.

After NVIDIA is installed ... nvidia-smi -l .... in a terminal window.

Hi all,

I use HT on and run only 6 CPU tasks (the number of real cores). Of the remaining 6 HT cores 4 serve the 4 GPUs and the rest 2 the OS, GUI, network disks etc.

You can try something like this ...

for (( ; ; ))
do
  schedtool -a 1,2,3,4 `pidof setiathome_x41zc_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu_cuda65`
  schedtool -a 1,2,3,4 `pidof setiathome_x41zc_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu_cuda65_v8`
  schedtool -a 1,2,3,4 `pidof ap_7.01r2793_sse3_clGPU_x86_64`
  schedtool -a 6,7,8,9,10,11 `pidof MBv8_8.05r3345_avx_linux64`
  schedtool -a 6,7,8,9,10,11 `pidof setiathome_8.04_i686-pc-linux-gnu`
  schedtool -a 6,7,8,9,10,11 `pidof ap_7.05r2728_avx_linux32e`
  schedtool -a 5 `pidof compiz`
  sleep 2
  rmdir ~petri/Downloads/BOINC/slots/1?*  2>/dev/null
  rmdir ~petri/Downloads/BOINC/slots/2?*  2>/dev/null
  rmdir ~petri/Downloads/BOINC/slots/3?*  2>/dev/null
  rmdir ~petri/Downloads/BOINC/slots/4?*  2>/dev/null
  rmdir ~petri/Downloads/BOINC/slots/5?*  2>/dev/null
  rmdir ~petri/Downloads/BOINC/slots/6?*  2>/dev/null
  rmdir ~petri/Downloads/BOINC/slots/7?*  2>/dev/null
  rmdir ~petri/Downloads/BOINC/slots/8?*  2>/dev/null
  rmdir ~petri/Downloads/BOINC/slots/9?*  2>/dev/null
done

Petri

---

To overcome Heisenbergs:
"You can't always get what you want / but if you try sometimes you just might find / you get what you need." -- Rolling Stones

. . I have seen an earlier message referring to the need to remove the default linux Nvidia drivers which do not support Seti and to install the proper Nvidia drivers. So thanks for reminding me, it will go on the list.

It will go on the list??

LOL without BOINC recognizing the cards you are wasting time ... It IS the LIST :D

BTW if you have Linux running, install gkrellm and psensors from the Ubuntu Software Center - your gonna ask for them anyways, so now you know, LOL. And the system monitor should already be there.

After NVIDIA is installed ... nvidia-smi -l .... in a terminal window.

. . "The list" refers to my list of things to do to get this rig up and running. I am relying on some form of rudimentary "legacy" video drivers to allow some configuration and tweaking, otherwise I am screwed as I do not know how to remove one set of drivers and install another while the system is running.

. . I don't even have the rig built yet but I am trying to sort out things like the OS, so I can get it into operation quickly when it is built. And I have no idea what gkrellm is, I am guessing that psensors is an app to read hardware sensors in the system. Yes I saw the system monitor when I did the test run. And now I am trying to guess what nvidia-smi -l might do to the video card ...

. . Again, thanks for your input ...

Stephen

:)

Try dual booting your CoreDuo, it will work well with little resources and make those 1060s purrrr

EDIT: Never looked at this on previous installs. Up and running on USB with all system updates, 245 tasks, and 6.8Gb used. Lets see Windoze 10 do that :P

Hi Stephen,

The nvidia-smi -l is easy to tell:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Mon Mar  6 22:12:42 2017       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 378.09                 Driver Version: 378.09                    |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 1080    On   | 0000:05:00.0      On |                  N/A |
| 96%   67C    P2    54W / 215W |   1285MiB /  8112MiB |      0%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
|   1  GeForce GTX 1080    On   | 0000:06:00.0     Off |                  N/A |
|100%   67C    P2   150W / 215W |   2508MiB /  8113MiB |     93%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
|   2  GeForce GTX 1080    On   | 0000:09:00.0     Off |                  N/A |
| 96%   66C    P2   148W / 215W |   2508MiB /  8113MiB |     92%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
|   3  GeForce GTX 1080    On   | 0000:0A:00.0     Off |                  N/A |
| 96%   64C    P2   151W / 215W |   2508MiB /  8113MiB |     93%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |
|  GPU       PID  Type  Process name                               Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0       887    G   /usr/bin/X                                     212MiB |
|    0      1462    G   compiz                                         115MiB |
|    0     11002    C   ...thome_x41zc_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu_cuda65_v8   945MiB |
|    1     11988    C   ...thome_x41zc_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu_cuda65_v8  2497MiB |
|    2     11766    C   ...thome_x41zc_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu_cuda65_v8  2497MiB |
|    3     11273    C   ...thome_x41zc_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu_cuda65_v8  2497MiB |

---

To overcome Heisenbergs:
"You can't always get what you want / but if you try sometimes you just might find / you get what you need." -- Rolling Stones

Try dual booting your CoreDuo, it will work well with little resources and make those 1060s purrrr

. . I used the Core2 Duo as the guinea pig to try it out, but it only has a single GTX1050ti so Ididn't take it any further there, though I am sure it could make that card sing too.

. . The 2 x 1060s are sitting in a Pent-D 930 (Dual core) and it is running Win7 Ult. Only has a SATA 2.0 HDD (200GB) which is kind of full atm, not sure it has the space to do a dual boot install. It also only has 4GB ram too. Seti is running on a 120GB SATA SSD and I don't want to screw up that account by trying to run BOINC under Linux and destroying/overwriting the existing account. That machine is ear marked for an upgrade when the Ryzen issues get sorted out.

. . Mind you, I would love to see how well they would do with Special Sauce. I was looking at another users setup with the special sauce on 2 x 1060s, and that rig is knocking out WUs in about 3 mins :)

. . At any rate I want to get it sorted on the purpose built system first. If all goes well there I might change the other rig over too. Then again I could set up a test install on the C2D on another flash drive and learn the ropes there, and see how the 1050ti does :). Sadly a flashdrive based test setup on the Pent-D is not an option, the buses are waaaaaayy too slow. :(

Stephen

.

Hi Stephen,

The nvidia-smi -l is easy to tell:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Mon Mar  6 22:12:42 2017       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 378.09                 Driver Version: 378.09                    |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 1080    On   | 0000:05:00.0      On |                  N/A |
| 96%   67C    P2    54W / 215W |   1285MiB /  8112MiB |      0%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
|   1  GeForce GTX 1080    On   | 0000:06:00.0     Off |                  N/A |
|100%   67C    P2   150W / 215W |   2508MiB /  8113MiB |     93%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
|   2  GeForce GTX 1080    On   | 0000:09:00.0     Off |                  N/A |
| 96%   66C    P2   148W / 215W |   2508MiB /  8113MiB |     92%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
|   3  GeForce GTX 1080    On   | 0000:0A:00.0     Off |                  N/A |
| 96%   64C    P2   151W / 215W |   2508MiB /  8113MiB |     93%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |
|  GPU       PID  Type  Process name                               Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0       887    G   /usr/bin/X                                     212MiB |
|    0      1462    G   compiz                                         115MiB |
|    0     11002    C   ...thome_x41zc_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu_cuda65_v8   945MiB |
|    1     11988    C   ...thome_x41zc_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu_cuda65_v8  2497MiB |
|    2     11766    C   ...thome_x41zc_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu_cuda65_v8  2497MiB |
|    3     11273    C   ...thome_x41zc_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu_cuda65_v8  2497MiB |

. . That will be handy to know. I would especially like to know the temp and current power usage, as I like to run my equipment a little cooler than you it seems. Though being winter there I can see how the central heating effect would be beneficial :)

Stephen

:)

are those 4 1080's in the same case or installed outside on a rail? impressive temps for 4x1080 running at full load if they are all on top of each others

---

Try dual booting your CoreDuo, it will work well with little resources and make those 1060s purrrr

EDIT: Never looked at this on previous installs. Up and running on USB with all system updates, 245 tasks, and 6.8Gb used. Lets see Windoze 10 do that :P

. . Since the Pentium D is too old and does not have a "boot from USB" option I am trialling Linux on the Core 2 Duo which has successfully run "taste Ubuntu" for the three flavours I have tried with reasonable success. I have decided to go with Ununtu 14.10 as is seems the most comprehensive and function inclusive of the options. But when I tried to install it, the way it presents the installation details bothers me.

. . I am trying to install it to a 32GB Sandisk Extreme USB drive which I bought for the purpose so the full trial will not impact on the existing setup in any way. To this end I need EVERYTHING to be installed/mounted on this USB drive.

. . The installation process allows me to select this drive, /dev /slc, but refers to it as the "Boot partition" as if it will let me boot from it but wants to install itself on the hard drive, /dev /sla, which is absolutley NOT acceptable to me. Can you, or anyone else, confirm if this is the way it works or if by selecting this drive as the Boot Partition it will in fact mount absolutely everything on this drive. I would in fact like to somehow block all other drives from Linux use so that any and all future applications will see only that drive as accessible.

. . I am sorry if I seem obtuse but Linux behaviour is the undiscovered country for me.

Stephen

??

<sigh>

Linux creates more than 1 partition that it uses, one being swap, instead of a swap file, you have a partition. It 'should' only install to one drive, but to be sure anytime I install things I simply unplug the drives that are not to be installed to or needed -- it's pure safety that it can't be touched if it is not there! Once you have installed Linux plug it back in and you have 2 drives. Linux then has access to the Windozs drive then, but won't 'use' it.

Well, in Ubuntu there is a release called LTS, Long Term Support. You should stay with the LTS versions as those are the Only ones that receive Long Term Updates. The LTS versions are 12.04.x, 14.04.x, and 16.04.x.
As earlier, I suggest the 14.04.5 image. When you go to install it, choose *Something Else* and it will place the BootLoader on the Main drive of your choice and allow you to place the Home, Swap, and System partitions on different partitions. Or, you could just choose to install the data partitions on one drive and I believe it will make it's own Swap partition in the selected space. Using the *Something Else* choice it will install where you select it to install, just make sure you have the correct drive selected.

I'm still waiting for the Pulsefind bug to be solved, so far, there hasn't been any improvement since the z41p_zi+ build. The current build is a little faster, but still gives just as many Inconclusives.

<sigh>

Linux creates more than 1 partition that it uses, one being swap, instead of a swap file, you have a partition. It 'should' only install to one drive, but to be sure anytime I install things I simply unplug the drives that are not to be installed to or needed -- it's pure safety that it can't be touched if it is not there! Once you have installed Linux plug it back in and you have 2 drives. Linux then has access to the Windozs drive then, but won't 'use' it.

. . It was actually the /home partition and the /root partition that concerned me most. If I felt sure they would be mounted on the same drive as I select for the /boot partition I would feel a lot happier.

Stephen

??