I've just set up the Windows SMH client on my new overclocked E6300 rig. My Sempy box is now running the Win9x version 4.00. I may try to learn this VMware stuff in order to try and run the Linux client...

Hmmm,



Thanks for those answers. A few more questions.
1) What is SMP?
2) Know of any good 64bit Linux distros (free of couse) that arn't recourse hungry? (It will be run in VMWare)
3) Will running Linux in VMWare (~80% CPU power) still be faster than the windows client? (100% CPU power) If it's close I'll save the hassle and run the windows CLI version.
4) I don't want to fold 24/7 with the dells. One is obnoxiously loud, and the other is plain loud. I wanted to run them ~8-10hrs per day. Would I lose the work the machine had done? Or would it pick up where it left off?

Thanks again! (and sorry again )

EDIT: Nevermind #2, I'll just use the Gentoo minimal.

Symmetric multiprocessing, ie using more than 1 core or CPU at the same time. The Mac/Linux SMP client is much superior to the windows one, from what I hear.


Several people here have had success with Ubuntu, some in VMWare and some in a dual-boot scenario. It shouldn't eat too much resources if you don't run anything else from it, although you might want to disable desktop applets and similar.


If it's the SMP client it should be, but don't quote me on that. Check with avi_dan if he could do a comparison, he recently set up just this.


It picks up where it left when you quit, but it might be tight with the deadlines. And I hear that the deadline-less units are being phased out. You should get some points at least, since you'll meet the final deadline if not the preferred.

Dang, then I should set it up as well, it would triple my production. Feels unreal, what's the catch? I'm running two clients on my E6600 24/7 for now.

Just use a 64-bit linux on a virtual machine, right? I might have some uses for VMware anyway...

There is no catch. Just sign here along the dotted lines....

64 bit Gentoo won't run on the Dells. (Duh! The dell's have a P4 & P3) Anyways, I got the 32-bit version of Gentoo and it worked. Everything worked until the last step, (14), and



I know why that happened, my question is how do I get a 32-bit version of the Linux client?

I thank you again for dealing with my ignorance. (But I'm soooo close!)

I would NOT use a live-CD for folding if you don't intend to do it 24/7, since it'll lose whatever work you've done (apart from the finished work units that have been sent to the servers) when you reboot (which clears the RAM where the data is stored).

You seem to be a bit confused about what you need to run. On the Dells you need the 32-bit client, which (for Linux) is found at http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegrou ... -Linux.exe instead. Install instructions are found here. If you have windows installed, you should probably just use the regular windows client instead.

Using VMWare and a 64-bit linux is only really beneficial if you have a 64-bit dual-core or dual CPU machine, but you should probably still install a distro here to keep the data over reboots. Ubuntu is very easy to install and use.

Sorry, the Linux SMP client will only run on a 64 bit os.

No chance on it running on the P3's the P4's may be ok if the processor supports EMT64.

avi_dan,

minor off topic: are you personally running purely the linux smps? I'm running purely the xp smps and we seem to be trading places a lot recently on the 'leader board' and just wondered if we could clarify (for the benefit of the team of course!) whether [email protected] is better or not than [email protected]?

Cheers,

cd8uk

I'd be very interested in this also, I have the option of a pure Linux or pure XP SMP setup.

Oh, it seems the Windows SMP client is viable too, I'll give it a try at some point. Too bad they're all beta and it eventually expires - I don't want to have baby-sit it. Hopefully there will be a more final version soon.

Changing between clients could be an annoyance, with getting current work finished approximately at the same time, so as not to waste time waiting for the other core to get it done...

Hello,

For me, the 64bit Linux SMP client is much faster than the Windows SMP client. The Windows client is glitchy, and it seems to "want" a quad core -- it is a newer beta; as they only came out with it recently.

I have a question about VM Ware: I got it installed in Windows (though there was an error message about missing or improperly configured MS IIS?), and I got 64bit Ubuntu installed in it. It "sees" the local network, but the problem is it can't get on the Internet.

It seems to be my Kerio firewall that is blocking it. So far, I havn't found out how to allow it to work w/o just disabling it...

Hi

No, I am running:

SMP client on Ubuntu 64 bit-VMWare on a Core2Duo 2.13 GHz
SMP client on Vista 32 bit on a Dual Xeon 3.6 GHz
SMP client on Vista 64 bit on a P4 3.0GHz
Non-SMP client on Vista 32 bit on a Pentium M 2.0 Ghz laptop
Non-SMP client on WinXP on a Pentium 3 700 Mhz laptop

Some of these I am running from behind a ISA firewall so I HAVE to use the Windows client...

As you can see I try to fit the best solution to the workstation, I would also put my microwave oven to fold if I could....


How about you?

Hi,

I currently have:

e6300 c2d @ 2800 - WinXP_SMP (via zalman reserator2)
am2-4400 @ 2700 - WinXP_SMP (thermatake ultra 120 + nexus 120)
s939-x2_3800 @ 2150 - WinXP_SMP
s939-x2_3800 @ 2100 - WinXP_SMP
and
single core @ 80% (WinXP-NON-smp) of s939 x2_3800 @ 2400

I have dabbled with vmware-ubuntu64 but so far have stuck with WinXP-SMPs. For info on project 2610 I'm getting between 550 (s939 x2) and 1000ppd (c2d)... You?

cd8uk.

I've been getting 550+PPD with my X1950pro, does anyone know if my Opteron at 2.8ghz running the Linux client using VMware will perform better? Once the Windows SMP client gets less buggy, and allows for use as a service, I'll see if I can install it on some of my schools computers. I originally had about 29 cpus, now I'm down to 23 including my own, and the one in my lab. Lost a lot of progress last week after having serious issues with the windows SMP client.

edit: that TSC team has a lot of processors...in the top 20 there were several users with more than 60 cpus active. I may have to install some clients on some more machines in my free time. I wonder what my school would do if they found out I was doing this.

Hello,

I think that the VMware/Linux 64bit SMP would do better that the GPU client -- on that speed Opteron, it would probably be 2X as much?

You should definitely get permission to run [email protected]! It is an excellent cause, and should speak for itself. But until they know about it, they may get upset -- it could be serious for you; so please ask.

Don't do that, you risk being thrown out of school, and it makes FAH look bad. A lose-lose situation.

Uhhh, I too have a x1950pro, and have been having problems with it. It seems to complete WU's but not get points. Go to SPCR's user list and sort it by WU's. Then look for me. 10k WU's completed, 0 points, and dead last. I don't know what's going on or what I'm doing wrong. I've tried many things, but can't seem to get it working. Can you give me a quick step by step? Thanks

[email protected] doesn't seem to like me....


Actually I think this is a great idea! -With permission that is. If you get found out the school will probably get mad. If you tell them what you want to do, you could get all the machines there folding for you, and not worry about getting in trouble. When you talk to your school about this, emphasize how the school can say they are helping find a cure to cancer, Alzheimer's disease, etc. Also note how [email protected] will not intefere with the computer's regular tasks. Imagina 3-4 labs all folding under your/SPCR's name

it doesn't seem to like me either. I've left it running for over a week before and had no issues. Now I just got home to find a VPU recovery error, and the client closed. Really strange. What's even more strange is that my room is cooler right now than it had been the week I was gone. As far as a step by step, I'm not sure I could give you one, I just installed it, and it worked. I had some issues with the first gpu client, but the most recent one seems to work fine for me. Just make sure you're using compatible ati drivers, as some of them wont play well with [email protected]



I understand they wouldn't be happy if they knew a few of their pc's were running a client that keeps the cpu at a pretty high load, but it's been 8 months, and only 6 machines have been shut down. I used to work for the clusters here, so I have administrative passwords, and I know that they wouldn't be monitoring the active processes. What they usually do if a pc has problems is immediately re-image the machine, that way they not only erase the operating system, but also the hard drive on the pc where students may have installed things(like [email protected]). So, I'm not worried. I might bring it up to my old boss, but I can't really see him reacting positively to the idea of having even one cluster folding. I'm not sure if he'll get guff from the university for eating that much power. All of the desktops are windows running P4's or P-D's. Not exactly the most eco-friendly. The Macs are Core, or Core2, but I'm not familiar with the client on those systems. As far as linux machines, we only had a row of about 7 in a computer cluster of 80+ machines. I'm really not worried about getting in trouble. The most they would do is re-image the systems, I know the guy who would actually have to do it anyway, we eat lunch together almost every day.

So, I went and tried ubuntu 7.04 using vmware in windows, and I finished a 1440 point WU in less than a day. I used the calculation suggested here, and it suggests I'm getting approximately ~2000PPD. Not sure how accurate the estimate is. But, even using VMware, it's extremely fast. I've decided as soon as my WD5000AAKS is formatted, I'm going to make a partition and dual boot ubuntu.

am i right in thinking it should be even faster on a pure Ubuntu boot (ie without VMware overhead)?

Hello,

Yes, native Linux is faster -- I found out another reason why: the MPIexec.exe, which is the "cluster" manager is native to Linux, and it is rather clunky in Windows. Microsoft has not adopted it because they do not think that clusters are important, or something...

Whats the spec of this machine?

Its an opteron 170 operating at 2.8ghz. I've been having some issues with a newer work unit, now I've been getting 0x1 errors. I installed ubuntu and tried to run a native client, but that keeps giving me 0x1 or 0x0 communcation errors. I can't delete the work folder, only the queue file, so it keeps screwing up. I went back to windows, and launched the virtual machine, and that too gives a 0x1 error. Not sure if it's the WU or what.

Somebody here has started to do some good.
We were down to like 134 active members and continually dropping. We're now back at 142.

We haven't been going in the right direction for a while.

This is good news.

Aris

In less than a week Anandtech will pass us we will be be #22.

Our top 20 folders looks much more impressive than even just a month ago, even though TRC-13 looks like he/she has had some issues. Before only TRC-13 was over 2000/pts daily, now there's four people pulling off that stunt.

Total count is now back under 140 folders, to 139.

Avidan seems to have found the keys to the NewEgg warehouse.

I should have 2 AMD dual-core Linux boxes Folding within the next 2-3 days, will that help us keep our position?

Can't even guess till the numbers start crunching, but if you can run SMP on each box you will definitely become one of the major contributors here.

It is done, we are now

#22

I've just begun smp folding on two amd x2 machines. The slower machine is folding in windows, the faster in linux. hope it helps.