• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Linux VM's

Axdrenalin

Axdrenalin

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - Nov. 2009
2FA
Joined
Jan 28, 2004
Messages
6,301
Quick question for you Linux VM users out there.

I formatted one of my quads a couple days ago and loaded up PCLinuxOS on it. I then proceeded to load up VMWare Server and set up a couple VM's using Ubuntu 64 Bit. I currently use four gigs of DDR2-800 on this box and it runs like a dream.

Do any of you guys run two VM's using just 2 gig's of RAM? I see references to WU's requiring less than 512 Megs each, so I'm thinking that I could run VM's on my other machines with just a couple gigs of ram as well.

I'm getting right at 12 minutes / percent on both of the VM's, so I'm seriously thinking about going with Linux /VM's on my other quads as well. Any suggestions, comments, or creative knowledge would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance...:cool:


 
For a dedicated folding box, you can run 2xVM with just 2 GB fine. The thing is to disable advmethods to avoid the 2619 WU which eat a lot of memory. For those with 4 GB, just set advmethods to true since you still have enough ram.

 
I'm only running VM's on my Boxen.

My setting are 1,200 Meg set aside for the VM, The client sees 999 Meg of that.
The max memory size of a work-unit is ~800 Meg for p2619.
In theory if you set you folding size below 800 Meg you should not get this work-unit but that did not happen in practice when p2619 was released into the wild.

Do not set the advanded methods flag.
I'm getting a straight run of p2605 without it set.
With it set, I got chewy work-units.

I like the VM's.
I've found now I've got the disk image built and its working how I want it to, the client is stable.
Just the very odd bad work-unit, cannot download new work, etc, etc.
But thats normal for Stanford.
Its also quick to clone the VM's.
Just change the network name, remove the work folder, queue.dat & machineindependent.dat files and you've got a new folder that you know will work when restarted.

Luck ............ :D
 
I used Tigerbiten's guide as well. I've got a "master" VM with everything loaded on it. A couple of tweaks and it's up and running.

I have been giving some thought to how much memory I will need if I use a GUI for the host as I'll need to get VMWare Server installed and running. The guest VMs only need 1 gig to run. For the RAM I am looking at, it is only a difference of $30 to go from 2GB to 4GB. 4GB I would think would give me additional breathing room.

 
Tigerbiten,
Have you considered instaed of running windows and 2 linux O/S's on one machine you could just run 1 linux OS with 2 instances of SMP (from different folders). You lose the overhead of windows and 1 linux O/S. Its faster to boot and is a lower memory hog. You can start the SMP with the taskset command if you want to assign cores to it but I have found you only get a small boost in PPD (30-40) from this. Just run 2 instances and get 4000PPD from a 3.0 ghz machine and save the cost of windows $$$$
 
The problem is getting a WU which only run well on quads... Making the fah client see just 2 cores will avoid this ;) However, I do agree with that if we can avoid the issue I just outlined.
 
I have two quads running Linux with Linux VMs for folding which have 2 gig of RAM. I have no trouble doing this and they get the 1760 point work units almost exclusively. I give each VM either 512 or 768 meg of RAM and they run just fine.

Those VMs put out much better PPD than my quad running Linux and two regular clients since those clients get the quad only work units which don't give very good PPD.

 
I'm sticking to VM's as I'm only getting p2605's at the moment.
I've a good 325 PpDpGhz average across all my boxen.
See sig for total Ghz ........... :p

Luck ......... :D
 
I have this "problem". Running here a dedicated Q6600@ 3400 Mhz diskless Kubuntu 64 machine but getting most of the time 3065 love. That badly hurts my PPD. Now my main limitation is I am running everything from a 4 Gb flash memory unit with less than 700 Mb free at the moment.


How much in size a couple of VM under Kubuntu 64 bits will need?
It is pretty cheap to buy a second 4 Gb flash unit if that will make it to accommodate a couple a VM. Will that do it?
 
a VM of Ubuntu 64 bit (GUI version as I'm a total noob and the GUI makes it easier for me) is 2.1 GB. The problem with the VM and the flash memory unit is that you will probably need about 8 GB as you'll need to install VMWare on the host. All told, it'll probably be around 7GB for everything.

One of the things I considered was the USB Drives. Yes they are cheap, but I noticed that a 40GB WD SATAII Drive is only about $38. I've figured this into my overall boxen cost. The 40GB WD gives me more than enough room to do a Linux install (Host), VMWare Server install and two Linux VMs. The HDD I believe will be much faster than running all of that off of a USB Drive.

 
Don't count out the 160gig drives for what 3 dollars more on newegg?

 
My VM's disk image is only 1.87 Gb in size.
But when you add in all the other files it needs, then it adds up to 3.1 Gb per VM.

To run the VM's your best getting a cheap +20 Gb hard drive.

Luck ............ :D
 
Yes. I bought a bunch of Seagate 160GB SATA disks for 51$ each and this can help you resell the boxen if you are strapped in cash (not that the [H]orde will go that way first, starving and cutting elsewhere first :p).

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top