GUIDE: Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon with Nvidia GPU(s)

[TennesseeTony]

The last quarter of hiigaran's guide shows how to create an executable text file, to permanently set the fans upon restart, but I sometimes run into trouble when i get to that point in the install. The most recent install I used "4" to just control the fans, instead of "28" in the guide, which is fans plus overclocking.

Regarding driver version for Nvidia, it's quite silly really. I've had to experiment on each install, with 381, 384, and most recently, 387 drivers. Either it folds or it doesn't. Try a different Nvidia driver if Mint doesn't fold.

Also, found a neat tool called PSensor, downloadable from the "apps" on that startup pop-up Mint has, that keeps an eye on temps and fan speeds of the system/GPU. It's the poor man's version of MSI Afterburner, at least for monitoring.

 

[Howdy]

Er Ummm I didn't follow the guide mostly..........I did the shot gun approach and it pretty much bit me in the backside. I am thinking about just reinstalling and paying more attention to detail instead of click click click.....yeah yeah yeah I got this..... anger management issues......oops no I don't installation. Learning in progress anyway!


I do find it quite amazing that Win10 with same CPU/OC and a system running Linux and same CPU/OC crunching WCG= Linux system cuts the completion times ~45-55 minutes depending on the project. No errors, No scheduled reboots and forced Nvidia driver updates.........................I should have done this a long longgggggggggg time ago!

 

[biodoc]

QUESTION: I downloaded from Nvidia graphics drivers, which was saved as a '*.run' file. 'run'ning the file opens a text editor, rather than installing. How do you use the Nvidia download?

There's a good guide specifically for mint at the folding forum here.

One thing I would recommend for post-installation of any linux installation is to run the system updates before installing the nvidia drivers.

System update commands for debian based systems:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

 

[TennesseeTony]

Yep. That's the first two steps in hiigaran's guide.

 

[brownstone]

Alright, so I'm following the guide and I'm to the point where I've pulled up FAHControl but no folding is happening. I've fiddled with the cuda and opencl and everytime it looks like it's going to work and then it throws this error in my log
UNKNOWN_ENUM (127 = 0x7f) and the status of my card goes back to "Ready" There is no overclocking being done and I did run a memtest just in case. Any other ideas, opinions, or options?

 

[Pokey]

brownstone: What GPU card are you using? If AMD, I could not get mine to fold. It did just what yours is doing even with AMD driver so I abandoned it. If it is Nvidia I would check Driver Manager to verify you are using something like 384.90 Nvidia driver.

 

[TennesseeTony]

Each of my systems was different, @brownstone . One 1080 would run with Nvidia 384 drivers, the next few would only run with 381 drivers, and one would only run with 387 drivers. Weird, as they are nearly identical systems.

So my advice would be to try a different driver (if Nvidia), until one of them works for you.

Edit: Following the guide, I NEVER was able to get a card to run by adjusting the F@H Client's CUDA/OpenCL settings, that are included in the guide.

 

[brownstone]

@Pokey - I'm using a 1080ti with the Nvidia 384 drivers

@Tony - I'll keep experimenting with different drivers. I was just thinking that maybe this error I was getting was some new, rare and unique issue that only a guy like me would stumble across.

Thanks guys!

 

[Pokey]

"new, rare and unique" seems to be what we do around here.

 

[Howdy]

I feel "special" since I cannot even get F@H to even install much less run. I gave it up since I was just testing with 2/ 970s I had sitting here. I get a install error and was wanting to uninstall and it won't let me do that..oh well I'll figure it out....thus I'm "special"

 

[Pokey]

Howdy2u2, if you will post more specific info, someone here may be able to help you. Hardware info, OS type and version, and such.

 

[biodoc]

Yep. That's the first two steps in hiigaran's guide.

If this is the guide I don't see the following system update commands immediately following installation of the OS. You need both commands.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

 

[Howdy]

Howdy2u2, if you will post more specific info, someone here may be able to help you. Hardware info, OS type and version, and such.

When it first installed I got the the set up box for user name and key code and such, filled all that in and thought I was set to go. Rebooted machine and could not find any place to start the client so nothing worked. I tried the uninstall>reboot>and install to no avail now if I try to install it always comes up with this error set in the terminal:

(Reading database ... 272339 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../fahclient_7.4.4_amd64.deb ...
usermod: no changes
Unpacking fahclient (7.4.4) over (7.4.4) ...
Setting up fahclient (7.4.4) ...
update-rc.d: error: no runlevel symlinks to modify, aborting!
dpkg: error processing package fahclient (--install):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22+linuxmint1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu3.1) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.59ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu21) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...
ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot

FAH exists on the drive and I can find the folders for it, but it will not allow me to uninstall anything related to FAH much less allow me to launch it. If I have to format and install Linux again I am OK with that, good way to learn the ins and outs of Linux.

System:
Linux Mint 18.3, See signature below

The 970's will be pulled and swapped when I get some down time on the machine that has the GPUs in it I want to swap with. They will be 10xx series cards when I get to it, I basically wanted to get it up and running and figure out Linux itself and go from there.

 

[StefanR5R]

Somebody who has Mint up and running will hopefully comment.

I haven't, but plan to install it soon. Just one general comment: There are two ways to start the client. Manually, or automatically as a system service. On my dual-processor PCs with Gentoo Linux, I start it manually from the command line:

$ cd /my/folding/data/directory
$ /opt/foldingathome/FAHClient​

This I do as the user who owns the data directory. The data directory notably contains config.xml with my Folding@Home user ID, team number, slot config, and whitelist of the IPs from which I want to remote-control this client.

(The mainline Gentoo Linux repository installs Stanford's client version for Centos and puts the executable into /opt/foldingathome. Gentoo Linux also prepares files which can be used to let FAHClient start automatically after boot, but I don't use this on my CPU hosts. My folding data directory isn't actually called /my/folding/data/directory, but it could be. )

 

[biodoc]

When it first installed I got the the set up box for user name and key code and such, filled all that in and thought I was set to go. Rebooted machine and could not find any place to start the client so nothing worked. I tried the uninstall>reboot>and install to no avail now if I try to install it always comes up with this error set in the terminal:

(Reading database ... 272339 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../fahclient_7.4.4_amd64.deb ...
usermod: no changes
Unpacking fahclient (7.4.4) over (7.4.4) ...
Setting up fahclient (7.4.4) ...
update-rc.d: error: no runlevel symlinks to modify, aborting!
dpkg: error processing package fahclient (--install):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22+linuxmint1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu3.1) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.59ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu21) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...
ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot

FAH exists on the drive and I can find the folders for it, but it will not allow me to uninstall anything related to FAH much less allow me to launch it. If I have to format and install Linux again I am OK with that, good way to learn the ins and outs of Linux.

System:
Linux Mint 18.3, 250gb Samsung V-nand SSD HD, 2- GTX 970, x99 6850k 16gb G.Skill memory

The 970's will be pulled and swapped when I get some down time on the machine that has the GPUs in it I want to swap with. They will be 10xx series cards when I get to it, I basically wanted to get it up and running and figure out Linux itself and go from there.

The client normally runs in the background as a process. Try opening up FAHControl (start menu/education on mint) to see if you are folding.

 

[Howdy]

The client normally runs in the background as a process. Try opening up FAHControl (start menu/education on mint) to see if you are folding.

Nothing going on, just shows: local "connecting" inactive

 

[biodoc]

In my mint system (17.3), I start FAHClient by opening up a terminal window and running FAHClient (case matters).

Check your python version. FAH won't run on python 3 which is included in the latest mint distros.

Open up a terminal and type:

readlink -f $(which python)

 

[TennesseeTony]

You are correct doc, your second line is not in the brony guide. Good catch!

So you suggest(?) to go to terminal immediately after installation and :

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

edit: Restart optional, but recommended.

And then continue with the rest of hiigaran's guide (entering password, pressing ENTER, pressing Y for yes as needed) :

wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/109052632/python-support_1.0.15_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i python-support_1.0.15_all.deb

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

sudo apt-get install nvidia-xxx ((current versions are 381, 384, 387, pick one and put in place of xxx))

sudo apt-get -y install python-gnome2 mesa-common-dev freeglut3-dev nvidia-settings gedit

Installing FAHClient and FAHControl from the Folding@Home site. Then:

cd /var/lib/fahclient

ls

In which you are looking for a GPU.txt file, which you won't find, so:

sudo wget http://fah-web.stanford.edu/file-releases/public/GPUs.txt

And then restart.

edit: For Linux Mint, you can then find FAHControl in your start menu (and 'right-click' 'add to desktop' like I do).

 

[biodoc]

Yes, but recommend a restart after the system updates.

 

[Howdy]

Ok, I will get on that here in a bit. I just managed to successfully create an app_config for BOINC to run 2 projects per GPU.

This will keep me busy for a bit though, right now I need busy work. RIP Hunter my 13yr old Lab, I had to have him put to sleep this AM

 

[TennesseeTony]

Sorry to hear that Howdy.

 

[biodoc]

Yeah, sad news about your dog Hunter, Howdy.

 

[Howdy]

Thanks 10 and biodoc, it was time I just didn't want it to be that time.

Well I ran all the suggested sudo blah blah blah and...............N A D A no folding same errors always relating to fahclient. When there is a lull in crunching I will format and this time FOLLOW the correct procedure to get it running. Thanks for the help!!! It will NOT prevail I WILL beat it..............just on another day hehehe

 

[brownstone]

Bad penny reporting in...

So I have tried 6 different drivers now and all of them give me the same result. I've even tried a clean install and followed through the guide again. I install mint 18.2 (18.3 will not work), I follow the guide, then upgrade to 18.3 (I've tried not upgrading as well). I'm obviously missing something in the scheme of things. I'm trying to get 2 x 1080 ti's going here (I also installed windows and made sure they both were working).

 

[biodoc]

Brownstone, could you run nvidia-settings in a terminal and confirm that the dirvers are installed?

How are you starting the fahclient? Does it start automatically during boot or are you starting it manually. If the drivers are installed and you start the client and it fails, could you post the log file so we can take a look at it? Thanks.