I have an old 'puter that I am using (Dell optiplex something or other) with 256 MB of ram and an 800 MHz P3. I installed Damn Small Linux on the hard drive, and figured out how to download the linux client. Right now, I am getting "Error: Could not download core" when I run the file under the root shell. I did a chmod 777 to the FAH502-Linux.exe file, so I think it should run. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong here? I am a total noob when it comes to linux, so hand-holding is welcome.

Don't know, but you could try running the client with -verbosity 9 to see if the extra logging detail gives any more specific indication of what went wrong.

Make sure that the user who's running the client has write access to the work directory. Changing owner (with chown) on that dir to said user and chmod 755 should do it.

@bkh: I tried the -verbosity 9 flag, but I didn't notice a difference from having it on to having the regular verbosity (I think it's at 3 by default). I don't think it got far enough along to make much difference.

@floffe: I'll give it a try tomorrow morning and let you know if it worked.

Thanks, folks!
--KK

Hmm, now that I read it again you wanted handholding. So, as root:

floffe, thanks a lot. I'm now getting that the program is able to connect to an assignment server but is not connecting to a work server.

I tried the "hand holding" version that you gave me yesterday. I didn't understand the "recursive" part, though. I did do the following:
chown user /mypathto/FAH502-Linux.exe
chmod 755 /mypathto/FAH502-Linux.exe

Any suggestions?

I personally would use finstall to installF@H in/on Linux. It works a treat and can load monitors for you as well.

I use FahMon.

I seem to remember one of my installs taking a while before actually downloading anything... but as I've got the memory of a ... er... sorry, where was I?

Have you checked the server status page?


Pete

floffe was ensuring that the user who runs fah has permissions to write into the directory where the fah runs, so that the client program can write the new fah cores into that directory.

You didn't accomplish that by only changing the owner and mode of theFAH502-Linux.exe program. You may also need to do it to the directory path that contains FAH502-Linux.exe, for instance, if it was originally created/downloaded by the superuser/root account, but now you are trying to run it as a regular user. So the intention of floffe's suggestion --- if user named kkla is running folding in directory /home/kkla/fold --- is that the superuser would
chown kkla /home/kkla/fold
chmod -R 755 /home/kkla/fold

The 755 is 3 permissions digits: 7 for the user (now kkla), 5 for the group, and 5 for everyone else. "7" is 4+2+1 in binary 111 (permissions bits 4=execute, 2=write, 1=read), and in a directory listing with ls -l this permission shows as rwx which means read, write, execute. (To "execute" a program is clear. To "execute" a directory means to search it, i.e. to see what is in there by looking with ls.) "5" in binary is 4+1, 101, which is r-x read and execute, but no write. Other people can look into the directory, but they can't create files there.

The "recursive" part of changing the directory mode is to ensure that each part (/home /home/kkla /home/kkla/fold ) has the 755 permissions. If /home/kkla were too tightly protected, then /home/kkla/fold could be difficult or impossible to access, even if the permissions of /home/kkla/fold are sufficently loose, because unix usually searches for a file or directory one level at a time (first /home, then kkla, then fold) and it will fail out at the first level that refuses to grant permission.

This is in addition to what you did to change the executable program itself via
chown kkla /home/kkla/fold/FAH502-Linux.exe
chmod 755 /home/kkla/fold/FAH502-Linux.exe

Hope this isn't too much more than you wanted....

Thanks, bkh!

This is just what I needed. Thanks for the explanations. It can be really daunting for a new user to grapple with the command line stuff in linux, so I really appreciate your help and suggestions.

@peteamer: I'm going to install either SuSE or Kubuntu on my main rig at home when my new Opteron 165 arrives this week. I'll definitely use your suggestion for finstall.

I think part of the problem might be that I configured the install for "deadlineless" WUs, but I can't get a WU no matter if I'm using the Windows or Linux client at the moment. It might be that the no-deadline server has been down over the last couple of days or something along those lines. I tried the graphical client for Windows on the same machine and it was able to work on a regular "deadline" WU, but since the computer is a P3 800 with 256mb ram, it was going to take about 3 months to finish. So, back to linux over the next few days.

I'm an openSUSE user myself and can vouch for it.

By that I mean Google has lots of links to help you...

I think jaganath was having some F@H related probs on Kubuntu... but I think it's what NeilBlanchard uses without problem.

So which ever way you go, hopefully we might be able to help.


BTW what did you think of DSL? I've fancied rigging up a bitsa comp to try it for a while.



Regards
Pete

Good explanation, bkh. I just took the easy way out, although apparently not expressed as clearly as it should have been (like pointing out that it's the directory I wanted to change, not just the file).

>I think part of the problem might be that I configured the install for deadlineless" WUs,

Please search the documents/forums at stanford folding to look for the last word on those. I vaguely recall that the WUs with no deadlines were for a project named Tinker that preceded Gromacs --- it ended years ago so there have been none of those workunits available for quite some time. Maybe if you configure the client to only accept deadlineless WUs you will never get any work.

@peteamer: I like DSL--I've used it as a live cd with the -toram option and it makes any computer with 256 mb or more of memory seem to scream along. It's good for surfing the web in a cafe or the library or whatever when you don't feel safe leaving personal information or cookies on the machine (at least, that's what I have used it for in the past). I am just getting started with installing it on a hard drive (the "frugal install" seems to be the easiest way to go). So, all in all, I am really a Linux noob, but I appreciate the help and suggestions here immensely.

@floffe: I still really appreciate your help.

@bkh: I thought of that and re-installed the client, but the WU i got looks like it will take about 3 months to finish on this P3 800. Without the tinker core, is it even worth it, then? Any ideas on how to put older hardware to work in a meaningful way for folding?

Well, it's looking up. At this point it looks like it will take about 10 days to 2 weeks to finish a WU, which is better than I thought initially. All is well and good for the moment.

Thanks for all your help, folks. I'm sure I'll post more questions later.

I'm confused here, what is DSL? I think I know what DSL is but who knows how many things those letters could stand for. This seems to be something other than Digital Subscriber Line.

damn small linux