Running linux client in VMware

[The_Barnacle]

Ok I have it working now and it looks like it's pretty dang easy to set up My linux client is happily running the a2 core. I will start writing up the guide and put it in this thread.

[The_Barnacle]

Installation:

1) Get the latest version of VMware Player and install.
http://www.vmware.com/download/player/

2) Get the Diskless Folding Virtual Appliance from notfred.
http://reilly.homeip.net/folding/vm.html

3) Unzip the Diskless Folding Virtual Appliance and place it in your desired location on the hard drive.

4) Start VMware player



5) Select "Open" and navigate to where you unzipped the notfred files



6) Open the .vmx file in that folder

7) Once the console starts you will see the IP address it got from your DHCP server.



8) Point your web browser to the IP address of your VM and click on the "Reconfigure" link.



9) Enter in your user and team names. Click the "Reconfigure" button.



10) Now you must restart the VM for the changes to take effect.



11) If you're running a GPU2 client make sure you set the affinity so as not to use the same core as the GPU2.



Here are the steps to point FahMon to your new VM linux client...

1) Point your browser to the VM IP address and note the Hostname.

2) Enter \\"Hostname"\C\etc\folding\1\ into FahMon to track progress.


When I get time I'll try to come back and add screenshots, in the mean time let me know if there are any questions.

Right now one a2 client running on 2 cores @ 2.4Ghz is netting 2000ppd, that's double what I was getting with the regular windows SMP a1 client.

[The_Barnacle]

A side note:

If you are running the GPU2 client you don't want to have a VMware instance using the same core as the GPU2 client, it will stall the GPU2 client. This holds true in both XP and Vista. So for you dual core GPU2 users, this probably won't be a good thing or you to run. Those of you who have a quad can run one VM on two cores leaving 2 free cores for GPU2 and daily tasks. I still get more ppd and faster WU turn around with one a2 Linux VM instance on 2 cores then with both the Windows SMP client on all 4, and 2 Windows SMP clients and affinity changer.

[The_Barnacle]

Here's some benchmarks for different configurations, each client is only using 2 CPU cores...

Host OS: Vista Ultimate - 64
Q6600 - 2.4Ghz
Project: 2662 (Run 1, Clone 166, Gen 5)
13:16 per step - 2040 ppd

Host OS: Windows XP - 32
Q6600 - 2.4Ghz
Project: 2662 (Run 2, Clone 209, Gen 4)
12:42 per step - 2177 ppd

[Marvin_The_Martian]

Hey not many responces in this thread

I been thinking about running a smp vm with two cores, having one for my gpu2 and a totally spare one for my normal apps, being able to take from the gpu2 2 core which is only lightly tasked anyway. But I have a question, I know with a quad the windows scheduler will like to run most processes on core 0, but if you have virtualisation and a wm, you can totally hide two cores from the windows host os right? Will this influence the behaviour of the scheduler and if so in what way?

[The_Barnacle]

Hey not many responces in this thread

I been thinking about running a smp vm with two cores, having one for my gpu2 and a totally spare one for my normal apps, being able to take from the gpu2 2 core which is only lightly tasked anyway. But I have a question, I know with a quad the windows scheduler will like to run most processes on core 0, but if you have virtualisation and a wm, you can totally hide two cores from the windows host os right? Will this influence the behaviour of the scheduler and if so in what way?

I'm not sure what you mean by "hide two cores from the host OS". If your host OS is windows you still see all 4 cores in the task manager, the VM runs like a normal application and you can change the affinity for the VM from the task manager to cores 1 and 2 leaving 3 for GPU and 0 for other tasks.

[Marvin_The_Martian]

Mhm yeah makes some sence since the core count is determined at boot up. Sorry can't really explain what I'm trying to ask I guess I'll try to explain better tomorrow, don't feel like my head can handle it atm

[coo-coo-clocker]

Thanks for putting this up, Barnacle.
Any idea if the notfred install will work as a dual-boot or just having it run native (i.e., booting from CD)? I would like to get 64-bit linux running on my dedicated folder. Seems like it would run faster booting native rather than running in a windows-hosted vm session...

[The_Barnacle]

I'm not sure if the vmware image will work for that but he has a configurator for a bootable ISO. Just click on the "Generator" link...

http://reilly.homeip.net/folding/