Will we ever be able to use the newer Nvidia drivers with gpugrid? I really want to run gpugrid on this machine, and I don't want to use one of the older drivers to do so. I get far greater performance in my games with the 190 series over any previous versions.

I have seen users say they are using 190 drivers with ubuntu, but none seem willing to show how they did so. I am currently on a fresh install of ubuntu 9.10x64 using nvidia's 190.42 drivers, boinc 6.6.41.

I have scoured the net looking for a solution but am about to just give up.

I'd really appreciate any insight someone could give me on a way to make this work.

Thanks in advance!

I'm not using Ubuntu, but I am running GPUGRID w/ 190.42 on Fedora 11 x86_64, BOINC 6.6.40, with no issue. What error/issue are you running into when trying to build/install the NVIDIA driver?

here is what I got when run from terminal, this is also what I see in the boinc manager under messages:

pwolfe@WaterBox:~$ '/opt/BOINC/run_client' 
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Starting BOINC client version 6.6.40 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] log flags: task, file_xfer, sched_ops
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Libraries: libcurl/7.18.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8g zlib/1.2.3.3 c-ares/1.5.1
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Data directory: /opt/BOINC
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Processor: 4 AuthenticAMD AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 940 Processor [Family 16 Model 4 Stepping 2]
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow constant_tsc rep_good nonstop_tsc extd_apicid pni monitor cx16 popcnt lahf_lm cmp_leg
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] OS: Linux: 2.6.31-14-generic
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Memory: 3.87 GB physical, 949.11 MB virtual
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Disk: 178.94 GB total, 102.32 GB free
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Local time is UTC -5 hours
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] No CUDA-capable NVIDIA GPUs found
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] No coprocessors
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Not using a proxy
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [GPUGRID] URL: http://www.gpugrid.net/; Computer ID: 54526; location: (none); project prefs: default
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] General prefs: from http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ (last modified 20-Mar-2009 16:10:11)
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Host location: none
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] General prefs: using your defaults
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Preferences limit memory usage when active to 2972.60MB
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Preferences limit memory usage when idle to 3567.12MB
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [---] Preferences limit disk usage to 10.00GB
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [GPUGRID] Sending scheduler request: Requested by project.
27-Oct-2009 20:53:47 [GPUGRID] Requesting new tasks
27-Oct-2009 20:53:52 [GPUGRID] Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks
27-Oct-2009 20:53:52 [GPUGRID] Message from server: No work sent

Guess I sould mention I have a gtx 295, dual pcb version.

It's a known issue for Ubuntu - espesially in case of using a Berkeley BOINC Installer (*.sh). As I can remember now, you should manually add a "boinc" user into the "video" group or smth - the system does not allow "boinc" user to use GPU. Try to find the solution - it's somewhere in the Internet... :-)

That's why I've had a try to install BOINC from the repository at first, and then manually replace it's files with unpacked ones from berkeley installer. It was successfully performed on virtual machine, and one guy from "Russia" team did it on native Linux installation. May be you should try go this way since we have such an old version in repository? In this case there should no be any issues with security and users/groups.

---

From Siberia with love!

thanks for the suggestion. I'm already using a manually installed boinc in my /opt which I start boinc and moincmgr manually ( i prefer it this way) I'll look into the group stuff.

I've got unbuntu 9.10 x64and 190.32

All you need is to install drivers either from console with turning off Xorg either with Xorg running using such command:
sudo sh NVIDIA [what's ever the name] --no-x-check

and then
sudo sh cuda[what's ever the name]

and u've done. that's easy :-)

---

I also use 190.42 on Ubuntu 9.10, 64bit version.

- Remove installed nVidia drivers,
- press ctrl+alt+F1
- login
- sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
- go to directory where you put your nvidia drivers
- sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-190.42-pkg2.run
- answer yes to last question regarding nvidia-xconfig
- sudo reboot

Everything should work fine then.

I also use 190.42 on Ubuntu 9.10, 64bit version.

- Remove installed nVidia drivers,
...

How does one do that?
Sorry if that is a stupid question, however as you put such step-by-step instructions, it would seem right to detail this step also.
BR

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I also use 190.42 on Ubuntu 9.10, 64bit version.

- Remove installed nVidia drivers,
...

How does one do that?
Sorry if that is a stupid question, however as you put such step-by-step instructions, it would seem right to detail this step also.
BR

Of course, sorry.
If you installed the drivers that come with ubuntu, than go to system-> administration -> hardware drivers -> deactivate nvidia drivers.
I'm not sure does this remove the drivers completely but if it doesn't work, go to synaptic package manager and find nvidia drivers and uncheck them.

If you installed the drivers from nvidia site, for example 190.32 version, then:
- press ctrl+alt+F1
- login
- sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
- go to directory where you put your nvidia drivers
- sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-190.32-pkg2.run --uninstall
Of course, you need to have the binary from nVidia to do so, if not download from their site, they keep the older versions. (Don't forget to right click on a file and change it to executable, or write in terminal:
chmod 755 NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-190.32-pkg2.run)

That will remove the drivers

If your BOINC is unable to find your GPU, the information in this thread may help, particularly this post by Skip Da Shu and my reply.

Damn... My BOINC on Xubuntu 9.10 x64 started to no-find a GPU after system startup... Only restarting it's processes under root account is helping:

sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client stop

sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client start

---

From Siberia with love!

Damn... My BOINC on Xubuntu 9.10 x64 started to no-find a GPU after system startup... Only restarting it's processes under root account is helping:

sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client stop

sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client start

It could be that your nvidia drivers load after boinc is loaded at startup, so it detects no GPU.

In my case, I am starting boinc and the boinc manager manually after I reach a usable desktop, so I don't think that's the issue here.

Check this link, might have to do something with rights as Rabinovitch states:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=56183

Tried Rabinovitch his solution and works here for Ubuntu 9.10, BOINC 6.10.17 from getdeb.net and NVidia GeForece 9600GT 512MB

I think the important part is:
--begin--
ls -lh /dev/nv*

crw-rw---- 1 root video 195, 0 2009-11-17 19:50 /dev/nvidia0
crw-rw---- 1 root video 195, 255 2009-11-17 19:50 /dev/nvidiactl

and the user id for the Boinc process is a member of the video group.
--end--

For me it's:
$ ls -lh /dev/nv*
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 195, 0 2010-01-03 14:27 /dev/nvidia0
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 195, 255 2010-01-03 14:27 /dev/nvidiactl

Will have to find out how to fix it.

Edit: followed the steps of Ingvar here: http://www.gpugrid.net/forum_thread.php?id=1384&nowrap=true#12732

Now BOINC finds my GPU again. Hope it stays that way :)