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Headless Linux Distro
- Thread starter pjkenned
- Start date
may i be worthy
[H]ard|DCer of the Month - December 2010
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I think I would be willing to give this a shot on a box. Might take me a couple days to get to it, but as a past notfred user, I'm interested.
I'd go with may i be worthy's suggestion.
LinuxFah/LinuxRouter usually uses Slackware and pares it down to be small and fast. He had a VMWare version that most people preferred over NotFred's.
Try it and see what happens. If you like it, write it to the hard disk. If you don't, remove the CD and reboot when finished the last folding unit.
Try the BFS version with the *BF Scheduler* unless you are running more than 24 cores.
You will have to know the IP address of the box though, and use the web interface to configure the folding because if SSH is not enabled, and you don't have video, you're SOL.
LinuxFah/LinuxRouter usually uses Slackware and pares it down to be small and fast. He had a VMWare version that most people preferred over NotFred's.
Try it and see what happens. If you like it, write it to the hard disk. If you don't, remove the CD and reboot when finished the last folding unit.
Try the BFS version with the *BF Scheduler* unless you are running more than 24 cores.
You will have to know the IP address of the box though, and use the web interface to configure the folding because if SSH is not enabled, and you don't have video, you're SOL.
Unless you really know what you are doing in Linux, I would go with Ubuntu Desktop or Server with the BFS patch. My experience with "optimized" kernels is that they perform virtualy identical to a standard distro install. BFS makes a difference, as does using ext3 instead of ext4 for you file system. I have 6 machine running Linux now, 5 i would consider "headless" and the 6th is remotely controlled 99% of the time. 4 run Ubuntt Desktop, 1 runs Ubuntu Server, and 1 runs an "optimized" Gentoo install. Of my 4 comparable machines, 3 run Ubuntu Desktop and one runs Gentoo. They perform pretty much identically regardless of the OS.
The problem you are going to have with the Slackware image linked above is support. No one around here knows anything about it.
The problem you are going to have with the Slackware image linked above is support. No one around here knows anything about it.
Yes. It works, and is not painfully annoying to get installed and working (although Kendrak would probably disagree.) You can remote access the box via SSH or NX through SSH if you like the GUI. You can boot to RL 3 (text only) after everything is set up to save some cycles, although I really don't see a major difference doing that. I have 1 box that uses wireless, and it worked right out of the box with the Desktop install, if that is a concern. No one has convinced me that there are significant gains using something else as of yet, so I am sticking with god ol' Ubuntu Desktop.
this uses windows client in linux through wine...
I couldn't get it to work...nic problems...
I'll take stab me in the eye before I do that again, for $300 Alex.
I am a bit slow when it comes to linux, so take that for what it is.
This is what worries me. I picked Ubuntu because it is by far the easiest distro to install and get to do something useful IMO. I fought with it forever because of the processor load issue that was resolved with the BFS patch. The last several installs went without issue, and that included one on a machine with a wireless connection, which is notoriously difficult in Linux. I just don't follow how it is so difficult, but maybe I am making some assumptions that I shouldn't or something. Kendrak is far from a computer novice, so it really surprised me that he had all kinds of trouble with this install.
may i be worthy
[H]ard|DCer of the Month - December 2010
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Followup thoughts.
(I only suggested the Linuxforge link as the OP requested headless. The more I think about it it would be far less painless to use Ubuntu, then run without the GUI if desired. I have disabled non essential startup services, and see no evidence of background process interference)
In my introduction to Linux I have briefly tried the following on SR2's:
The other reason to go with Ubuntu right now is that it works well, quickly and easily, and it might not be worth putting too much time into fine tuning a distro given the changes in Gromacs/FAH that will be happening in the near future - NUMA and other optimisations that could easily make one distro obsolete. (Or god help us, make Windows competitive again).
There is another ~10% boost coming...
(I only suggested the Linuxforge link as the OP requested headless. The more I think about it it would be far less painless to use Ubuntu, then run without the GUI if desired. I have disabled non essential startup services, and see no evidence of background process interference)
In my introduction to Linux I have briefly tried the following on SR2's:
- OpenSUSE - would not install from USB stick - hung.
- Fedora - won't install to non ext4, networking did not work out of box. Hard to do BFS without a shitload more Linux know how than I have.
- Ubuntu 10.10 on USB stick- gave up - hard to do, 2 failed installations, one did, but and ran funky and slow, with frequent brief freezes and lockups.
- Ubuntu 10.10 on HDD Musky Mix - Winner. If you follow Muskys recipe exactly it is a reliable intstall, networking works, and performance speaks for itself. If a distro can be found that improves on this more than 1% I would change, but so far I have not seen it. Reliable and consistent frame times - more so than Windows. Happy.
- Linuxforge mentioned above - installed ok, but no networking etc, and setup a bit beyond this Linux/CLI noob.
The other reason to go with Ubuntu right now is that it works well, quickly and easily, and it might not be worth putting too much time into fine tuning a distro given the changes in Gromacs/FAH that will be happening in the near future - NUMA and other optimisations that could easily make one distro obsolete. (Or god help us, make Windows competitive again).
There is another ~10% boost coming...
Well, having a 10 month old baby crying and trying to take care of her while dealing with a linux modifications was probably a bit much to ask of myself.
The install is easy enough, it is all the moding afterward to get things happy that just wore me out. (that and not having much a basis for functions inside linux beyond the basics, I am just following directions without really knowing what I'm doing.)
I was a big user of notfreds back when SMP was new, and loved the headless operation of it. If this other distro is similar, it should be like old times as far getting the farm up and running.
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Oh hell, are we doing linux again?
I got back to back 6901s for the first time in a while, so its looking better. Debating moving my desktop to linux since there doesn't seem to be 2684s on linux bigadv yet
lol... you have just been lucky... there are those and its bros...85 and 86
The most recent image does not use wine anymore. I put that in there back when Linux bigadv support was disabled as a temporary work around. Which NIC are you running and what kind of problems with it?
--
varies highly... it wasn't seeing the nic at all lol...
NC382i
for one...
all broadcoms... I think...models vary...
Thanks for the info. I'll check to see if I have the broadcom NIC modules built for the image.
Linux is not immune to 2684's. So far since resuming folding on my i7 920 (Gentoo), I have received a 2686 and a 2684.there doesn't seem to be 2684s on linux bigadv yet
got one now... 40min tpf from 27...killin me...
Confirmed...I finished a 2684 yesterday on a Linux box.
Project: Babysit
Installing linux Forge's distro onto Valter's SR-2, and the whole process took maybe 5 minutes.
It is currently downloading it's first WU, a 6901. Since the SR-2 has a temp read out I'm not worried about a temp readout program.
Quickest I have ever got folding up on a system after a build since Notfreds.
I can say for those who don't have a bunch of windows keys laying around, this was beyond simple to set up, all the steps where listed rite on the screen.
Edit: you can set it up via command line (what I did) or with the web entry. Looking back, the web entry would have been even easier, I just forgot that it had it.
Installing linux Forge's distro onto Valter's SR-2, and the whole process took maybe 5 minutes.
It is currently downloading it's first WU, a 6901. Since the SR-2 has a temp read out I'm not worried about a temp readout program.
Quickest I have ever got folding up on a system after a build since Notfreds.
I can say for those who don't have a bunch of windows keys laying around, this was beyond simple to set up, all the steps where listed rite on the screen.
Edit: you can set it up via command line (what I did) or with the web entry. Looking back, the web entry would have been even easier, I just forgot that it had it.
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Update, just finished first frame. 12:26, or good for 121k. Normaly the first frame is a bit longer, So I think we are golden.
And at what speed? That actually sounds slow compared to my herd at 3.6GHz.
SR-2, 2x L5640 @ 195x18 = 3.5GHz 12GB RAM
The rig is identical to mine, RAM, CPUs, HSF, even the wimpy lil vid card. Just a different PSU and slightly different timings.
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Glad to see it works fine. When I and a few others tried an earlier version over a year ago, we couldn't get it to install or work properly. I was looking for a light, non-gui folding-friendly distro before Windows A3 was released but lost interest when PG dropped Linux -bigadv support.
Guide being referenced: http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1036935472&postcount=259
Hey by the way I did this today, and despite only running at 4.48GHz the i7-2600K in the Linux box on a 2685 is chugging along at over 47K ppd (26.5 min TPF) using the guide you made. It didn't work exactly:
1. I had to restart Ubuntu and log out/ in. I was getting errors during the ck installations. Once I did all of the reboot and relog items I went back to step 9 and it started working perfectly.
2. GRUB_DEFAULT=0 ended up being the ck one so I switched it back.
3. I did setup remote desktop just so I can VNC.
4. Samba was unhappy. I had to mark the samba-common-bin for upgrade and then everything worked.
Sandy Bridge #3 is now folding away! Thanks musky.
First, I am glad it worked out for you. The errors are interesting. It almost sounds like you didn't let up run through all of the updates before you started tweaking, which is fine, but it also would explan the grub default issue (the update loads a 2.6.35-27 kernel and that -ck kernel is 2.6.35-25, which puts it and its failsafe version at the 3rd and 4th positions in the grub menu) and possibly the -ck install issue and the samba issue you saw. Regardless, it wil be fine. i think that your ppd numbers speak for themselves - much better than folks were seeing on Windows.
Yea I have a Win 7 box 100MHz faster clocks, 8600 lower ppd.
And, probably running a better unit. The 2685 you are running on your Linux box is probably ~8% slower than the 6900/6901/2686/2692 units out there. I would expect you to top 50K ppd once you get a good unit on that box.
Pretty crazy but I finally got some 2686 and the SB linux box is at 22 and change TPF. Seems like an odd unit.