OS for 4p system

R

Raychem

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Joined
May 19, 2010
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11
Hi,

Need to get some help on the following question. I am weighing buying a used 4 P server with 4x Intel E7-4870. I will use this machine mostly for WCG. My question revolves around the OS. I want to use Linux for the first time. The ones I can use are either Red Hat or Suse. I have very little experience with these. Installation and setup I feel will not be a problem but the licensing is what I need to find out about. Are older versions of Linux free of licensing?

I know I can use Windows 2008 R2 Server to allow access to the 4 processors with 2 licenses. I would however like to start migrating away from windows and try something new. I am becoming annoyed with MS lately.

I have seen and read about 4p G34 builds plenty but very little on the OS people use for such a system.

Any Ideas or help would be welcomed.
 
Ubuntu tends to be the most common Linux distro used with BOINC. Other distros are harder to find support for. However, we do have a guide for CENT OS in our guide section. However, I'm not familiar enough with Red Hat and Suse to tell you which would be better for BOINC use.
 
Is it a dedicated machine ? Kind of setup and forget ? In that case I sure would suggest CentOS 7. There was difficulty to get BOINC installed in the past but is solved to my knowledge.

The good thing: CentOS is not always bleeding edge and more focus on stability than the latest feature here and there.
I struggled too much with Ubuntu on 14.04 and 14.10 that I finally switched.

So my totally biased suggestion: give minimal CentOS 7 a chance (and add gnome as UI).
If that not work out Ubuntu is also ok to try (but too much adware included for my taste)
 
I can use CentOS. I have not looked into it yet.

I do not need anything cutting edge. I will mostly use this machine as a cruncher. I have another computer that will be for my other tasks. This will just be a set and forget type deal.
 
I use Ubuntu 14.04 and Mint 17.3. Basic CPU BOINC setup is real easy with those. Install from the manager and its pretty much like Windows version from there.
 
The original 4p OS guides we have were based around Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I think I was running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS when I shut everything down years ago. If it were me and I ignored what I have been hearing around here lately, I'd go with the latest LTS Ubuntu version (16.04?), only because you will find a lot more documentation and troubleshooting help on-line for an Ubuntu release. I know CV is not a fan, but that probably has more to do with trying to run GPU DC with it. For a straight-up CPU-only BOINC machine, any Linux distro should work fine. Since we already have a relatively recent CentOS guide, that is what i would recommend for you.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Suse Linux Enterprise Server are two distros that are aimed at corporate use and do have licensing fees associated with them. You do not need this for your use case. Any "consumer" Linux distro (like CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Mint, etc.) will be just fine for you.
 
musky : psst, when I run Amazon EC2 instances from time to time my image there is based on Ubuntu (but don't tell anyone; keep it a secret, ok?)
 
You secret is safe with me.... :)

One of these days, I need to revamp the Ubuntu install guide for an Ubuntu version newer than 12.04. I actually have a board ready to go, so maybe that will be a weekend project - at least the install and setup part. Windows 10 auto-update got me again this week... :/
 
musky said:
You secret is safe with me.... :)

One of these days, I need to revamp the Ubuntu install guide for an Ubuntu version newer than 12.04. I actually have a board ready to go, so maybe that will be a weekend project - at least the install and setup part. Windows 10 auto-update got me again this week... :/
Click to expand...

This registry hack works great. Makes it so you DL and install updates when you're ready, like it used to be in win7. I did it on my win10 systems and no more reboots when you're not ready.
How to Prevent Windows 10 From Automatically Downloading Updates
How to Set an Ethernet Connection as Metered in Windows 8 and 10
 
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