This thread is to allow discussion of the following (locked) FAQ thread,

How to - install Ubuntu 16.04 x64 Linux & setup for GPUGrid

Post here about Ubuntu 16.04-x64 LTS installation and configuration.
Create a new thread for other distros, please.

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This thread is to allow discussion of the following (locked) FAQ thread,

How to - install Ubuntu 16.04 x64 Linux & setup for GPUGrid

Post here about Ubuntu 16.04-x64 LTS installation and configuration.
Create a new thread for other distros, please.

Thank you VERY MUCH for doing this guide! It's greatly appreciated!

You are welcome and I hope you find it useful.

Feedback, experiences and discussion would be appreciated.
Will update the FAQ with any augmentations/corrections as needed.

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I think, this is the more appropriate thread for the discussion I started over in COOLBITS as LUBUNTU and LINUX MINT are UBUNTU derivates.

My computer with the LUBUNTU 16.04 64-bit installation runs great for over 2 weeks now.

I installed LINUX MINT 18 64-bit on the computer with LINUX MINT 17.3 32-bit previously. Beside that the video card is too old to run GPUGRID, everything works very smooth.

So, I would like to say, that it is quite easy to use Linux for crunching with Nvidia GPUs since the UBUNTU 16.04 LTS release.

THANK YOU so much for doing this.

Would you recommend a USB 3.0 drive, or is a 2.0 drive sufficient?

If you use the USB-stick for installation on a Hard Disk it is not so important if you use USB 2.0 or 3.0, although the latter is noticeable faster during installation or running LINUX from the USB-stick (The start-up process is much slower on the USB 2.0).

However I do recommend that you use an USB-stick of at least 16 GB for installation only and 32 GB if you like to run LINUX Mint from the stick itself. The best thing is to use a spare/cheap one, as I have burned several in the process, but I am not a computer or Linux specialist at all.

I always used Multiboot Yumi http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator for the primary installation and then installed the LINUX Distro to second destination from there to either USB-stick or the Hard Disk.

If you use the USB-stick for installation on a Hard Disk it is not so important if you use USB 2.0 or 3.0, although the latter is noticeable faster during installation or running LINUX from the USB-stick (The start-up process is much slower on the USB 2.0).

However I do recommend that you use an USB-stick of at least 16 GB for installation only and 32 GB if you like to run LINUX Mint from the stick itself.

I have a 32GB USB 3.0 stick to which I was hoping to install Linux. Not run as a live distro (I'm assuming one cannot create, edit, and save persistent files within a live copy - is this incorrect?) or install from, but install Linux to the stick such that when the stick is plugged in, I will have a fully installed copy of Ubuntu, but when the stick is not plugged in, the PC will boot to Windows as normal from the internal drive.

After reading through skgiven's How To, I'm not sure whether this is the scenario in mind or not.

EDIT: I've tried twice to get Ubuntu up and running using UUI and also Rufus (as recommended on Ubuntu's site). Both times have resulted in absolutely nothing happening after the initial Install/Live selection screen. I would just get 20 minutes of black screen and the indicator light on the USB would not be flashing either. After 20 minutes I gave up - figured something should have loaded by then if it was working as it should. I hope I'm doing something wrong, but can't figure out what it would be.

My intention was to cover a basic/standard installation to an internal drive, rather than an external USB stick to create a multi-boot environment.
Overall, I found the OS and NV driver installations very easy but that might not be the case if you need to multi-boot &/or boot to a USB stick.

In your case I don't know what's going wrong, but you may need to select the drive you are booting to when you restart or remove the other USB drive (assuming you are installing the OS from one USB stick onto the other)?

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My intention was to cover a basic/standard installation to an internal drive, rather than an external USB stick to create a multi-boot environment.
Overall, I found the OS and NV driver installations very easy but that might not be the case if you need to multi-boot &/or boot to a USB stick.

In your case I don't know what's going wrong, but you may need to select the drive you are booting to when you restart or remove the other USB drive (assuming you are installing the OS from one USB stick onto the other)?

I tried both the "Install" option and the Live session option, both just went to black screen immediately afterward.

When I saw your install instructions and you had us using USB sticks rather than optical discs I just assumed we were actually installing Linux TO the USB rather than just using it load the image for install to an internal drive.

I'd rather not set-up a dual boot situation due to bad past experiences, but I have an extra SSD I could swap in for the Linux install. Never tried it, but I'm assuming that unplugging the Windows drive and replacing it with a drive on which I would then install Linux would allow me to just switch which SATA cable I have plugged in to switch OS (and files, etc.).

I've been slowly moving my DC machines to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. There's been some trials along the way but I was able to search for answers. The only problem I have not been able to solve is getting the Boinc manager to connect to the boinc client again. It was working fine until I did a sudo service boinc-client restart command in a terminal. After that the manager is shown as disconnected and it will not reconnect even after a restart or a complete power down and restart. I think it may have something to do with the client_state.xml file. The is no ip addy listed but when I edit the file and add one it doesn't stick. When I restart boinc it's empty again. When I check that file on other Linux hosts it shows the ip 127.0.0.1. On my lone windows host it shows the assigned ip addy I gave it (192.168.1.xx). Have no idea what else to try and asking for help @ askubuntu.com has resulted in no responses.

The only problem I have not been able to solve is getting the Boinc manager to connect to the boinc client again.

This is the issue I've always had with BOINC in Ubuntu. I've never been able to get it working because the Manager and the Client don't seem to want to talk to each other.

nanoprobe,

Never saw the issue that you have, but here are some ideas that might help.

Start up System Monitor and see if the boinc client is running. The Process Name will be "boinc" and the User will be "boinc".

Try restarting the boinc client with this command: "sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client restart". Then restart the boinc manager and see if it connects.

If it is still not connected, from the boinc manager, from the menu bar at the top of the window, click on "File", then "Select computer...". A small window will open up asking for host name and password. In the host name box, try "localhost" (without the quotes) no password and see if that connects. If that doesn't work, try host name "127.0.0.1:31416" (without the quotes) and no password.

If none of that gets you going, how did you install BOINC?

The only problem I have not been able to solve is getting the Boinc manager to connect to the boinc client again.

This is the issue I've always had with BOINC in Ubuntu. I've never been able to get it working because the Manager and the Client don't seem to want to talk to each other.

I have had this problem on every BOINC installation I have done in Ubuntu 16.04 on four machines.

The solution is:
Copy "gui_rpc_auth.cfg" from the /etc/boinc-client folder to the home directory and reboot to allow BM to connect.

Since you are only reading from the /etc/boinc-client it should work, but if you have a permission problem let me know. Why they did not get this right to begin with is beyond me, but I am new to Ubuntu myself and don't know what worked before.

nanoprobe,

Never saw the issue that you have, but here are some ideas that might help.

Start up System Monitor and see if the boinc client is running. The Process Name will be "boinc" and the User will be "boinc".

Try restarting the boinc client with this command: "sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client restart". Then restart the boinc manager and see if it connects.

If it is still not connected, from the boinc manager, from the menu bar at the top of the window, click on "File", then "Select computer...". A small window will open up asking for host name and password. In the host name box, try "localhost" (without the quotes) no password and see if that connects. If that doesn't work, try host name "127.0.0.1:31416" (without the quotes) and no password.

If none of that gets you going, how did you install BOINC?

Thanks but none of your suggestions worked. The boinc client and manager were both installed from the repositories.

The system monitor did not show boinc, only boinc manager but I know the client is running because I can control it with BoincTasks and the sensors show temp and 100% core load. Maybe things are different in this version of ubuntu.

The only problem I have not been able to solve is getting the Boinc manager to connect to the boinc client again.

This is the issue I've always had with BOINC in Ubuntu. I've never been able to get it working because the Manager and the Client don't seem to want to talk to each other.

I have had this problem on every BOINC installation I have done in Ubuntu 16.04 on four machines.

The solution is:
Copy "gui_rpc_auth.cfg" from the /etc/boinc-client folder to the home directory and reboot to allow BM to connect.

Since you are only reading from the /etc/boinc-client it should work, but if you have a permission problem let me know. Why they did not get this right to begin with is beyond me, but I am new to Ubuntu myself and don't know what worked before.

I copied the gui_rpc_auth.cfg from the /etc/boinc-client folder but I was not able to paste it into the home directory. The paste option was greyed out which means I have a permissions issue. Did a lot of searching and tried some terminal commands but have not found an answer yet.

I copied the gui_rpc_auth.cfg from the /etc/boinc-client folder but I was not able to paste it into the home directory. The paste option was greyed out which means I have a permissions issue. Did a lot of searching and tried some terminal commands but have not found an answer yet.

Here is a more complete list of what I do to allow access to /etc/boinc-client.

Note that I copy a modified "gui_rpc_auth.cfg" into that folder, but you may not need to modify it. Also, it allows for creating (or changing) a "cc_config.xml" file, if you need to do that. I also use a "remote_hosts.cfg" file to allow access over the LAN, but you may not need it.

I have also included the commands to allow access to /var/lib/boinc-client, where the project folders are located. You will need that to copy an "app_config.xml" file into the GPUGrid project folder, for example.

-> Just replace "user_name" with you actual user name.

Join the root group: sudo adduser user_name root
Join the BOINC group: sudo adduser user_name boinc

Allow group to read, write and execute in /etc/boinc-client folder: sudo chmod -R g+rwx /etc/boinc-client
Allow group to read, write and execute in /var/lib/boinc-client: sudo chmod -R g+rwx /var/lib/boinc-client
Reboot

Copy “gui_rpc_auth.cfg” to /etc/boinc-client folder
Copy “remote_hosts.cfg” to /etc/boinc-client folder
Copy “cc_config.xml” to /etc/boinc-client folder
Copy "gui_rpc_auth.cfg" to the home directory
Reboot

Copy the "app_config.xml" files to the project folders in /var/lib/boinc/

I copied the gui_rpc_auth.cfg from the /etc/boinc-client folder but I was not able to paste it into the home directory. The paste option was greyed out which means I have a permissions issue. Did a lot of searching and tried some terminal commands but have not found an answer yet.

Here is a more complete list of what I do to allow access to /etc/boinc-client.

Note that I copy a modified "gui_rpc_auth.cfg" into that folder, but you may not need to modify it. Also, it allows for creating (or changing) a "cc_config.xml" file, if you need to do that. I also use a "remote_hosts.cfg" file to allow access over the LAN, but you may not need it.

I have also included the commands to allow access to /var/lib/boinc-client, where the project folders are located. You will need that to copy an "app_config.xml" file into the GPUGrid project folder, for example.

-> Just replace "user_name" with you actual user name.

Join the root group: sudo adduser user_name root
Join the BOINC group: sudo adduser user_name boinc

Allow group to read, write and execute in /etc/boinc-client folder: sudo chmod -R g+rwx /etc/boinc-client
Allow group to read, write and execute in /var/lib/boinc-client: sudo chmod -R g+rwx /var/lib/boinc-client
Reboot

Copy “gui_rpc_auth.cfg” to /etc/boinc-client folder
Copy “remote_hosts.cfg” to /etc/boinc-client folder
Copy “cc_config.xml” to /etc/boinc-client folder
Copy "gui_rpc_auth.cfg" to the home directory
Reboot

Copy the "app_config.xml" files to the project folders in /var/lib/boinc/

That fixed it. Can't thank you enough. For someone who claims to be new at Linux you fixed something I've searching for weeks. Where did you come up with the info?
Thanks again.
David

For someone who claims to be new at Linux you fixed something I've searching for weeks. Where did you come up with the info?
Thanks again.
David

You are welcome. It is Googling and educated guessing. There is unfortunately no single source of information for BOINC on Linux. That seems to be true of other aspects of Linux too. You have to learn it yourself for each distro. But for my simple crunching needs, it is now actually faster to set up a machine on Ubuntu than for Windows. I did my fourth one today in under two hours from the point of wiping the SSD with a secure erase to crunching on BOINC, and shortly thereafter Folding too.

It is unfortunate that the learning curve is steep though. Linux is really designed to be a secure server operating system, not a desktop OS. The permissions and folder structure are quite different than Windows, as you know.

Each distribution/version of Linux has different features, terminal commands and add ons which makes it almost as difficult moving from one distribution to another as it is to move from Windows to Linux. However, Ubuntu 6.04-x64 is a Long Term Support distro, so it's something you can stick with for longer. While the command lines might have changed somewhat, again, the GUI updates (via the Ubuntu Sortware icon and Sortware & Updates in System Settings) are encouraging.
At present 6.04-x64 LTS works for GPUGrid crunching due to the driver support for GTX900 series GPU's. The question at the back of my mind is will it support NV's GTX1000 series GPU's?

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/06/top-5-terminal-commands

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man8/

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FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

Each distribution/version of Linux has different features, terminal commands and add ons which makes it almost as difficult moving from one distribution to another as it is to move from Windows to Linux. However, Ubuntu 6.04-x64 is a Long Term Support distro, so it's something you can stick with for longer. While the command lines might have changed somewhat, again, the GUI updates (via the Ubuntu Sortware icon and Sortware & Updates in System Settings) are encouraging.
At present 6.04-x64 LTS works for GPUGrid crunching due to the driver support for GTX900 series GPU's. The question at the back of my mind is will it support NV's GTX1000 series GPU's?

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/06/top-5-terminal-commands

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man8/

16.04 does support the 10xx series GPUs. It was a minor PITA(probably more so for me being the Linux noob) to get it working. I can post what I did later if that will help. Just waiting for GPUGrid to support them.
Thanks for the links.