How-To: Ubuntu cruncher! Install and forget

Well i got couple of requests to make this kinda howto from this :)
The installion is pretty much this: Put cd in and click next but and fill couple forms if you fail in this you're an idiot :rofl:

First lets get the installion image file and burn it.

64X or i386 Images:

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

Imgburn is light'n fast burning software.

http://www.imgburn.com/

Or use the UNetbootin to make an booting installer stick.
UNetbootin dls the image files and makes the stick bootable automaticly, over 1GB sticks prefered.

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Lets begin!

select your language:


Now just press enter:


Next you should see window like this:

CLICK install that's what you wanna do

Just press next when these appear unless you really wanna read em!:






Now you need to select you HDD i prefer use whole disk if you're just planning to run cruncher :)


Now just will these forms as you like, Just remember to check: Login automaticly!:

You're done! Just press Install button and take cup of coffee this i'll take a while ~5-10min =P


I'll post little later about the boinc installion :)

OK! Installion done:
http://s0lid.bx.fi/kuva/xsubuntu/XSU...3-20-55-48.png
Press restart now.

BOINC that's what we wanna see!

Locate console/terminal:

http://s0lid.bx.fi/kuva/xsubuntu/XSU...3-21-00-16.png

Write:

Code:

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1.
wget http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/boinc_6.6.4_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh <- 32b
or
wget http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/boinc_6.6.4_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh <- x64
or you can use any other earlier version instead of those i listed :)

2. sh boinc_6.6.4_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh <- x64
or
sh boinc_6.6.4_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh <-32b

With 64bit version remember to install ia32-libs
2a.
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

*HINT* You can use tab in console ;) first letter of file *tab*

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Now in console reads:
use /home/*username*/BOINC/run_manager to start BOINC

Lets not do that yet. Lets set the autostart :)

Autostart boinc on boot

Locate Sessions name service (System - > Preferences - > Sessions), just try follow what i do next :P
http://s0lid.bx.fi/kuva/xsubuntu/XSU...3-21-09-30.png

Press Add
http://s0lid.bx.fi/kuva/xsubuntu/XSU...3-21-11-12.png

Press browse
http://s0lid.bx.fi/kuva/xsubuntu/XSU...3-21-11-28.png

http://s0lid.bx.fi/kuva/xsubuntu/XSU...3-21-11-35.png

http://s0lid.bx.fi/kuva/xsubuntu/XSU...3-21-11-40.png

Press add:
http://s0lid.bx.fi/kuva/xsubuntu/XSU...3-21-11-45.png

If you have this kinda view front of you, well you've done it right.
http://s0lid.bx.fi/kuva/xsubuntu/XSU...3-21-11-49.png

Time to reboot
The power buttons are located at right upper corner, restart your rig from there lets test does the autostart work and then you can setup your account data for boinc :)

If you see this window when the desktop has been loaded you can say success!

http://s0lid.bx.fi/kuva/xsubuntu/XSU...3-21-20-58.png

AND what comes to my low res i were runnin that OS from vmware :)

Here's some good guide made by karl_eller which can be found from end of second page:

Setting up Remote Desktop for Ubuntu + Monitoring and Overclocking with Ubuntu

I should also point out that this guide works great for installing Ubuntu on a USB disk, just select the USB disk when doing the "Guided, use the whole disk" part. Then on this screen, click "Advanced" and choose to install GRUB on the USB (usually something like sdb1) rather than HDD:
http://xs536.xs.to/xs536/09091/xsubu...0-44-34362.png
While this does technically put the swap partition on the USB drive, on my E7200 with 2Gb RAM, Linux doesn't use ANY of the Swap partition, and barely 1/4 of the RAM, so I'm not worried about constant swap read/writes destroying the USB drive.

Monitoring and Overclocking with Ubuntu
So you've followed s0lid's excellent guide so far, and you have your shiny new Ubuntu machine up and crunching. However now you want to be able to check on the PC without having to have a screen/keyboard attached to it, and most importantly you want to keep an eye on temps and be able to overclock. That's where this little guide comes in.

First:
Setting up Remote Desktop

OK, first things first, you are most likely going to want to set a static IP to your machine, if you haven't done so already. Static IP addresses make it much easier for configuring things like remote desktop, since the IP of the machine won't change when the PC and/or router restarts.
To do this, find the network icon in the top-right, right-click on it and click "Edit Connections", which should bring up a screen like this:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/ubuntu_1.png

Click on "Auto Ethernet" (or whatever your connection may be called), then click "Edit". Click the "IPv4 Settings" tab and select "Manual" from the method drop-down menu.
Now you'll need to enter in the desired IP address, netmask and default gateway. The IP address will depend on how your network is configured, although in most cases it will be something like 192.168.1.xxx (where xxx is between 1 and 255). I suggest starting from a high-ish number (eg 80 or higher) so that the router's DHCP still has plenty of IPs for automatic assignment. Netmask is usually 255.255.255.0, although that might be different depending on your network setup. Gateway is the IP of your modem, usually something like 192.168.1.1 or 10.0.0.1.
Once you've done that, enter the IP for your router (and any alternate IPs it may have) in the "DNS Servers" box, and you'll wind up with something that looks a little like this:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/ubuntu_2.png
Click "Apply" and then close the "Network Connections" window. To check it is configured properly, right-click the Network icon again, untick "Enable Networking", and then tick it again. If all is well, you should have net connection again, and the "Connection Information" window (again found by right-clicking the Network icon) should show the correct IP Address and Primary/Secondary DNS's.

Right, so that's your static IP set up. Now lets get some kind of remote desktop happening.

To do that, click: System > Preferences > Remote Desktop, like thus (although you most likely won't have boxes ticked):
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/ubuntu_3.png
Just a random note, with this window, unlike a lot of other settings windows, changes are applied immediately upon ticking/unticking a box instead of waiting for Apply/Cancel, so if you're running this headless, make sure you don't untick "Allow other users to view your desktop" or "allow other users to control your desktop" while using a VNC program, otherwise you may find yourself locked out like I did :p:

So now, you want to tick "Allow other users to view your desktop", "allow other users to control your desktop", and make sure that "You must confirm each access to this machine" is UNticked. Password is optional (Remote Desktop will only accept connections from the local network by default, AFAIK), depending on how much you trust other users of your local network. You should wind up with a screen that looks like the above.
What this does is enable Ubuntu's built in VNC program, so you are obviously going to need a program to connect to a VNC server. I personally use UltraVNC which has a really nice little stand-alone VNC Viewer.
To double check everything is working, use your VNC program of choice to try connecting to the Ubuntu machine. I use the IP Address (hence setting a static IP), since I have isses connecting to hostnames on a mixed Windows/Linux network. If it works, contgratulations! If it doesn't, you'll need to re-check your network settings.

Temperature monitoring

So we're accessing this machine remotely and it's crunching 24/7. But there is a heat-wave coming, or you're wanting to OC a bit, and you want to be able to check temperatures. Luckily, Linux has you covered. Open up a terminal window, and enter the following:

Code:

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sudo apt-get install lm-sensors gkrellm

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enter your root password and answer "y" to any prompts.
This installs the lm-sensors package (one of the most common, and really the only, temp sensor package in Ubuntu) and the GNU Krell Monitors, a nice little sidebar-like program that reads lm-sensors.
If you have any problems installing by the terminal, you can install them via the Synaptics Package Manager. Click System > Administration > Synaptics Package Manager, search for the 2 packages ("lm-sensors" and "gkrellm"), mark them for install and then click "apply".

Now you have them installed, you need to configure lm-sensors. In a terminal window, enter:

Code:

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sudo sensors-detect

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It will now ask you a bunch of prompts as to if it should scan or load certain things, you will want to enter "Yes" to all of them. Once it has finished scanning, it will give you a summary and ask you to press Enter a couple of times to continue. Do so. You'll end up with a terminal that looks a little like this:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/ubuntu_4.png
Pay attention to the stuff between the two "#----cut here----", these are the sensors that have been detected on your motherboard. They will vary from board-to-board, although all of them should have at least "coretemp" in common. Enter "yes" for the last prompt, and you've finished sensors-detect.

Now all that does is detect what sensors are available, it doesn't actually install the modules required to read them (despite what it might say about editing /etc/modules), you'll need to enter each one manually using:

Code:

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sudo modprobe [module name]

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For example, on my MSI P35 Neo2-FR, sensors-detect found "f71882fg" and "coretemp", so I entered:

Code:

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sudo modprobe f71882fg
sudo modprobe coretemp

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Once you've done that, check that lm-sensors is working, by typing

Code:

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sensors

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into a terminal. You should end up with something that looks a little like:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/ubuntu_5.png
Of course the actual output will vary a lot depending on what sensors your motherboard has, but you can at least see the temps for each core, vCore and System (usually the Northbridge, but YMMV). As you can see, not all the voltage readings are entirely trustworthy, depending on what sensors you have and what your board can monitor. You'll need to figure out what can be believed and what can be ignored. In my case, only vCore reads even remotely close to what it should be, so I'm ignoring the rest of the voltage readings.

OK, so that's lm-sensors installed and configured. But terminals are boring, and it doesn't update, so we need something that can read lm-sensors real-time and give us some nice pretty graphs and stuff. This is where Gkrellm comes in. You can launch it by clicking Applications > System Tools > GKrellM System Monitor.

To open the Configuration, either click anywhere on the GKrellM window and hit F1, or right-click on the hostname and click "Configuration". The sensors and other items can be found by expanding "Builtins". I won't bother going into what different things do and how they should be set up, as it'll add way too much to this already kinda lengthy How-to, and I'm sure most of you can figure it out.

This is how mine looks:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/ubuntu_6.png

Overclocking and stress-testing tools

When it comes to tools for OC'ing, Ubuntu doesn't have a whole lot in it's repositories. However tools do exist, and they are pretty handy. Two that I use are PerlMon, a CPU-Z equivalent, and SysTester, which basically runs X threads of Y loops of Z length SuperPi, and error checks the whole way, rather than making you validate a checksum at the end. I find around 30 loops of 8M digits on all cores gives you a fairly good indication as to if it's WCG stable or not. But as with all OC'ing, YMMV, and the amount of time taken to complete these loops will vary a lot depending on your clock speed.

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Hopefully I was able to help people out with this little addition to s0lid's existing Ubuntu guide.

Eller

I would like to add a little something ... you want your session to auto-start run_client not run_manager. That way you can open the manager whenever you want and close it again without killing the client or wasting cycles making pretty pictures.

I'm getting ready to set up a couple of crunchers and I'll try this out.

Thread stuck.. Thanks s0lid!:up:

Yeah, thanks, as some folks apparently had trouble this is long overdue! :up:

great guide solid :up: edit the title tho to add the "h" in cruncher

Thanks solid. The linux noob in me gave up far to early! I now recognise what I was doing wrong. Can this work with BoincView?

Great guide, 8.04 is a lot faster than 8.10 in Folding so I am sure it would be in WCG also. Something about the newer kernel is slower...

Sweeeeet. :up: No time now, but I'll be back.....:yepp:

You can also get the Boinc cient from the applications>add/remove it may not be the newest though.

That's the same one you get if you open the terminal and enter "sudo apt-get install boinc-client boinc-manager" (or do it through the synaptic package manager), trouble is, they never update it between OS releases.

Does the 64 bit client still require you to install the ia32libs in order to work ? I guess it's been a little bit since I've done a new one. Before, you needed to do that in order to run the work units, which are 32 bit. I believe some projects may now have native 64 bit code but some not.
Also, an editing idea, include a link to the ubuntu download page instead of directly to the .iso files for the current versions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by don_xvi

Does the 64 bit client still require you to install the ia32libs in order to work ? I guess it's been a little bit since I've done a new one. Before, you needed to do that in order to run the work units, which are 32 bit. I believe some projects may now have native 64 bit code but some not.
...

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The last time I did a fresh install they weren't required, but that could be that they were already installed by default, too. If in doubt, install them.

"sudo apt-get install ia32-libs"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by D_A

I would like to add a little something ... you want your session to auto-start run_client not run_manager. That way you can open the manager whenever you want and close it again without killing the client or wasting cycles making pretty pictures.

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Good point btw!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 64dragon

great guide solid :up: edit the title tho to add the "h" in cruncher

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Fixd =)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by emuexport

Thanks solid. The linux noob in me gave up far to early! I now recognise what I was doing wrong. Can this work with BoincView?

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Well i don't know for sure, i've never used boincview before.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by don_xvi

Does the 64 bit client still require you to install the ia32libs in order to work ? I guess it's been a little bit since I've done a new one. Before, you needed to do that in order to run the work units, which are 32 bit. I believe some projects may now have native 64 bit code but some not.
Also, an editing idea, include a link to the ubuntu download page instead of directly to the .iso files for the current versions.

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64bit client installs w/o any addional libs :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by D_A

That's the same one you get if you open the terminal and enter "sudo apt-get install boinc-client boinc-manager" (or do it through the synaptic package manager), trouble is, they never update it between OS releases.

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Just tried to check which version of boinc reposities have. Couldn't find :shrug:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by s0lid

Just tried to check which version of boinc reposities have. Couldn't find :shrug:

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8.04 is still pushing 5.10.45

Go to GetDeb is where I get mine its a little newer.. :up:

I seem to remeber I had to install the ia32libs last time I installed Ubuntu.

I would suggest to do it anyway (to be safe) by typing 'sudo apt-get install ia32-libs'

This is a great sticky but I would like to know 2 things.

Is there a good app like coretemp for ubuntu?

Secondly is there also something as Prime95 to test the cpu because i just build a Q6600 cruncher on ubuntu and want to clock it but I don't have/ can't find the apps like for windows.

Thanks.

I use a monitoring applet called gKrellm .
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/...m/gkrellm.html

Thanks i got gKrellm running now but it does not detect the temps. I have installed the lib package for the lm-sensorss with detect-sensors he finds my sensors and with sensors in the terminal it also gives me some temperature.

I'm just such a noob at this linux stuff.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ramaistro

Thanks i got gKrellm running now but it does not detect the temps. I have installed the lib package for the lm-sensorss with detect-sensors he finds my sensors and with sensors in the terminal it also gives me some temperature.

I'm just such a noob at this linux stuff.

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read here from post #22
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ghlight=ubuntu

Dead image links? Only two images took forever to load. If you like, I can host these images for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ashraf

Dead image links? Only two images took forever to load. If you like, I can host these images for you.

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XS.to is slow as hell i see... wait a sec i'll host these at BX.fi :)

E: 2nd posts pics moved to new server, need to dl pics from 1st post, they're not on this rig anymore :shakes:

Looks like you edited this today-thanks a million. I will be getting the sammies up and running on this and this guide is the bestis!!!