Lubuntu & F@H

[SmoulderingCircuits]

Anyone had any experiences they'd care to relate?

Erasing my ~250-300GB of 4TB worth of drives, then going to create a RAID0 array of four Spinpoint F3s and install Lubuntu 11.10 and V7, will report back what my points are like but should be much improved over Win7, especially with an x64 client. This is my first time using Linux, but it shouldn't be too hard to get used to. And yes I know it won't play games - but it's only going to fold, browse in FF and use any old chat client for the rest of the rig's life so why should I care?

Any experiences? (Linux in general)

 

[riotcity76]

If it's only going to fold, what's the point in the RAID array?

 

[Pickster]

If it's only going to fold, what's the point in the RAID array?

I was going to ask this.

There must be a better use for the F3s. One on its own is pretty fast, if you really want to RAID them, I'd just do two. And RAID the other two in another PC.

Or sell them before drives become dirt cheap again.... I'm struggling for HD space because I can't bring myself to buy at the current prices.

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

I was going to ask this.

There must be a better use for the F3s. One on its own is pretty fast, if you really want to RAID them, I'd just do two. And RAID the other two in another PC.

Or sell them before drives become dirt cheap again.... I'm struggling for HD space because I can't bring myself to buy at the current prices.

I bought the four F3s for their speed, not for their capacity (they were a mere £40 a piece at the time, one month before the hike!). I'll find a use for them somehow - and I am aware seek speeds will suffer as a result of four spindles instead of one.

 

[Pickster]

I bought the four F3s for their speed, not for their capacity (they were a mere £40 a piece at the time, one month before the hike!). I'll find a use for them somehow - and I am aware seek speeds will suffer as a result of four spindles instead of one.

I got my F3 at about the same time you did, for about the same price lol. Had I have knowen I would have got atleast one more. Getting a 500gb WD green for £35 off ebay about a month ago was rather painful compaired to the value I got from the spin point last September(?). Down on both speed and capacity.

I dout you would really notice much difference in seek times in real world use using 4 in RAID rather than just one. It just seems to me, for what the PC will be used for, a waste of the other 2 or 3 drives.

As for your original post which I didn't really respond to.

Linux should be pretty easy to install and there are/should be plenty of guieds to get things going and folding. From my use of Linux, it is a bit of a pain in the butt, things seem a tad more difficult than needs be, but I'd say the one thing thats most likely to cause difficulties is/are drivers.

Once all the hardware is functioning things should go pretty smoothly from then on.

I am thinking about getting Linux set up on my Dual Xeons. So I will be interested in your results. I know I can find this with a google search.... but anyway. Is there GPU folding in Linux and if so how does it compare to GPU folding in windows?

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

I am thinking about getting Linux set up on my Dual Xeons. So I will be interested in your results. I know I can find this with a google search.... but anyway. Is there GPU folding in Linux and if so how does it compare to GPU folding in windows?

I thought Linux had GPU folding??!!

 

[Pickster]

I don't know if it does. I should, but I don't.

Too lazy to google right now... which is really rather bad lol

 

[riotcity76]

People have been known to GPU fold in Linux with wine...with mixed results. Now, I know that if you are running bigadv or bigbeta, the cost of running a GPU client is not worth it, as it takes away from the SMP client and the reduction in bonus points is more or less similar to your gain from GPU. This is why you see all the dual and quad processor rigs running the CPU client only. It's the same PPD for less power used. If you aren't running bigadv though, there won't be as big of a performance hit, so it may be worth it.

If you are still interested in Linux, this guide is the best you'll find and is what I used to set up my SR2. It doesn't help with GPU folding though, you'll have to find another guide for that unfotunately.

Edit: I want to add that if you are only planning on regular SMP plus one or two gpu clients, you're probably better off sticking with Windows. Less headache and you can stil run the SMP client in a Linux VM and the GPU clients in native Windows.

 

[Pickster]

I remember reading something about only being able to run a limited number of threads under Linux. Maybe that was only through a VM though.

Clearly that can't be the case, at least now, since it's possible to run bigadv under Linux.

I won't be able to run bigadv as I only have 8 cores.. and even then when bigadv was able to run on 8 cores/threads my slow xeons wouldnt have had a gread qrb anyway.

I am however interested in the speed bump that Linux is said to give over Windows. Since my dual Xeon system isn't my main rig (infact it's my folding rig which can also be used as a back up if required) and if I did install Linux it would be on a second hard drive along side windows, I don't mind the fuss of getting Linux set up.

It would be handy as an option, if there is still a PPD bump under Linux, for when I'm not folding on the GPU.

 

[kilobravo]

Remember i read somewhere,that ubuntu 11.10 doesnt work well with f@h. The 11.04 or previous versions is working well with my i7-970,giving 95k ppd at wu6904 with the gromacs-A5 core.

 

[Pickster]

Remember i read somewhere,that ubuntu 11.10 doesnt work well with f@h. The 11.04 or previous versions is working well with my i7-970,giving 95k ppd at wu6904 with the gromacs-A5 core.

95k PPD?

Any idea how much of a boost you are getting over running the same setup in windows?

 

[riotcity76]

Remember i read somewhere,that ubuntu 11.10 doesnt work well with f@h. The 11.04 or previous versions is working well with my i7-970,giving 95k ppd at wu6904 with the gromacs-A5 core.

Wait...is that current? 6904 is a bigbeta unit. I thought the requirement for those is now 16 threads...

 

[kilobravo]

Wait...is that current? 6904 is a bigbeta unit. I thought the requirement for those is now 16 threads...

Yes,had 6 wu6904 in a row.

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

Right, after much hassle and help from the friend who gave me the Lubuntu 11.10 disc, we decided that we couldn't use RAID of any form as it just kept corrupting everything.

I'm now running individual drives again and will use the other three drives in new rigs - the 5870s can't fold at the moment so I can't report back on them.

The 1090T, is folding, however, and bringing in 20-30k PPD whereas Windows was bringing in ~18k PPD then with 5870s on top 9k off each of those and ~5k off the SMP.

So Lubuntu is about 5-50% faster than Win7 at any given time in SMP, but is sticking around 30.2k at the moment.

Anyone want a pair of 5870s?

 

[Pickster]

With those results I am 100% going to try Lubuntu with my dual quads and if that goes swimmingly on my i7 2600k too.

I'm not going to do the automated dual boot, I will just have it so I select the boot device and chose the disc Linux is on and Windows will be my default boot disc. I have always prefured doing it this way, even though it was a little more trouble back when motherboards/bios didn't have those nice 'press F9 for boot device menu' on boot.

Does anyone know the typical PPD difference between..

running F@H in Linux

vs

running F@H in Linux (running) in a Virtual Machine

^^^^ I had to set it out like that because even though I had typed it, I found it hard to follow in a sentence

P.S.

If your giving those cards away, my brother is hurting for some graphical power as he is only using onboard...

On a serious note though. Stick them on ebay and grab a nVidia card for some folding power

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

With those results I am 100% going to try Lubuntu with my dual quads and if that goes swimmingly on my i7 2600k too.

I'm not going to do the automated dual boot, I will just have it so I select the boot device and chose the disc Linux is on and Windows will be my default boot disc. I have always prefured doing it this way, even though it was a little more trouble back when motherboards/bios didn't have those nice 'press F9 for boot device menu' on boot.

Does anyone know the typical PPD difference between..

running F@H in Linux

vs

running F@H in Linux (running) in a Virtual Machine

^^^^ I had to set it out like that because even though I had typed it, I found it hard to follow in a sentence

P.S.

If your giving those cards away, my brother is hurting for some graphical power as he is only using onboard...

On a serious note though. Stick them on ebay and grab a nVidia card for some folding power

I'm not giving them away, I'm getting my friend to sell them on ebay for me then going to use the money to buy (along the lines of):

http://www.ebuyer.co...rd-ga-78lmt-s2p

http://www.ebay.co.u...a#ht_500wt_1156

2x http://www.ebuyer.co...9-rm25664ba1339

http://www.ebuyer.co...u-cooler-ak-786

Then throw in spare drives off the 1090T rig (have three left).

£102 for a hex rig, if I get £306 for those 5870s, I could be raking in an extra 60k PPD for barely more wattage than I was formerly getting ~23k PPD

Running F@H in Linux VM through Win7 would be even slower than Win7, because you'd be running both OSs.