Help ! With Linux Mint 18.3

[Markfw]

EDIT: THE REAL GUIDE, AND PROBLEMS START ON PAGE 4, POST 85

So I used this guide here : http://www.bronyathome.org/forums/showthread.php?tid=585

And I got it installed after a bunch of disk errors. I had no idea what they were saying. Then I tied this:

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

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

That was in the instructions: and got this:

Length: 26672 (26K) [application/x-debian-package]
Saving to: ‘python-support_1.0.15_all.deb.1’

python-support_1.0. 100%[===================>]  26.05K   167KB/s    in 0.2s 

2017-11-30 12:44:13 (167 KB/s) - ‘python-support_1.0.15_all.deb.1’ saved [26672/26672]

mark@mark-g4560:~$ sudo dpkg -i python-support_1.0.15_all.deb
(Reading database ... 112399 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack python-support_1.0.15_all.deb ...
Unpacking python-support (1.0.15) over (1.0.15) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of python-support:
 python-support depends on python (>= 2.5); however:
  Package python is not installed.
 python-support depends on python-minimal; however:
  Package python-minimal is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package python-support (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.6.1-2) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 python-support
mark@mark-g4560:~$

I have no idea where to go from here. This is in DC since its related to the F@H race, and installing linux with F@H

 

[TennesseeTony]

Who told you to use dpkg? Oh, hiigaran did.

OK, first, to undo that:

sudo apt remove python-support

Then, to do it correctly, since I see it in Ubuntu's respository:

sudo apt install python-support

*Note: most sites tell you to use "apt-get", but "apt" gives a little nicer interface.

 

[Markfw]

Now this on the second command

mark@mark-g4560:~$ sudo apt install python-support
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information... Done
Package python-support is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'python-support' has no installation candidate
mark@mark-g4560:~$

It looks like python is not installed, but I tried to install it, and it looked like it wored

 

[StefanR5R]

(Note, I have never used a Debian based distribution myself, including Ubuntu based ones. I plan to try Mint at least soon. I use almost only Gentoo.)

@Markfw,
the messages from your first post mean that the package "python-support" depends on the packages "python" and "python-minimal", and you need to install these first before you can install "python-support".

If you use the normal package manager of your respective distro to look for packages to install, it resolves such dependencies itself and then suggests to you to install all those other packages together with the one you originally wanted. Evidently, "sudo dpkg -i xyz123" is too low-level to do this for you, except for giving those messages.

I suppose you need to do something like this:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install python
$ sudo apt-get install python-minimal

Or "sudo apt install ..." instead.

@TennesseeTony, @Ken g6,
sure that python-support still exists in newer versions of Ubuntu?
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python-support shows it only in versions P and T. (Version names instead of version numbers are braindead.)

Post #3 says this package is no longer available in the mainline repo.

 

[Markfw]

OK, now I get:

mark@mark-g4560:~$ sudo apt-get update
Hit:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful InRelease
Get:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-security InRelease [78.6 kB]
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-updates InRelease [78.6 kB]   
Get:4 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-backports InRelease [72.2 kB]
Get:5 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-updates/main amd64 Packages [74.3 kB]
Get:6 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-updates/main i386 Packages [73.6 kB]
Get:7 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-updates/universe i386 Packages [29.6 kB]
Get:8 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-updates/universe amd64 Packages [30.0 kB]
Fetched 437 kB in 0s (523 kB/s)                           
Reading package lists... Done
mark@mark-g4560:~$ sudo apt-get install python
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
python is already the newest version (2.7.14-2ubuntu1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 76 not upgraded.
mark@mark-g4560:~$ sudo apt-get install python-minimal
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
python-minimal is already the newest version (2.7.14-2ubuntu1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 76 not upgraded.
mark@mark-g4560:~$

Then if I try to install python-support, I get the same message

mark@mark-g4560:~$ sudo apt install python-support
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package python-support is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'python-support' has no installation candidate
mark@mark-g4560:~$

 

[StefanR5R]

Try hiigaran's method again, i.e.

$ wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/109052632/python-support_1.0.15_all.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i python-support_1.0.15_all.deb

 

[TennesseeTony]

Message one says you're good to go, already installed, no need to update anything.

Message two says.........I dunno. Perhaps you need a version? sudo dpkg -i python-support_1.0.15_all.deb is what the Brony guide says...

 

[StefanR5R]

AFAIU the command "apt" looks for desired packages in all configured repositories, and downloads them. The command "dpkg -i" only takes the package in the specified file which you already downloaded.

Evidently the current Ubuntu repositories don't have the package python-support anymore, hence the suggestion to download it from the given link manually, and install it "on the side".

 

[Markfw]

OK, I think that worked, so I got a couple more lines done before this error :\

mark@mark-g4560:~$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package 'nvidia' is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 76 not upgraded.

 

[Pokey]

I am sitting on the sidelines here because I used hiigaran's method with both Mint and Lubuntu and it worked for me on all my rigs. FAHControl was what was calling for Python support.

 

[StefanR5R]

Instead if

sudo apt-get install nvidia-[Enter]​

you need to put in

sudo apt-get install nvidia-[Tab]​

Once you pressed [Tab], the autocomplete feature of the command line shell is supposed to offer you one or more versions, e.g. nvidia-370 or nvidia-384 or whatever. Choose a version, then enter the command for good. E.g.

sudo apt-get install nvidia-384[Enter]​

However, after you added the nvidia driver repository, you may as well look up and install the nvidia driver via a graphical package manager interface. There is one on Lubuntu, isn't there?

 

[Markfw]

OK, I have F@H running. 63 ppd (no, not 63k, 63), and the video card will not run. But I am up and running !! Thanks all ! Not to decide if I want to try this on other boxes, especially while the race is on.

 

[Markfw]

So, after hours of getting this to work, how "friendly" is Lubuntu to hardware changes. So its on a G4560 flatform, with a 10 year old nvidia card. If I stick that hard drive in a Threadripper system with dual 1080TI's would it boot ? and can I upgrade the drivers easily ? Win 10 does that all by itself, does Lubuntu "

 

[Ken g6]

I had no problem moving a Debian system between a Core 2 and a Phenom several years ago. But that didn't include a discrete video card.

Come to think of it, your old video card might not be supported by the latest Nvidia drivers. So you might either want Linux with older drivers or the newer system.

 

[Markfw]

Well, this was just a test of what it takes to install Lubuntu 17.10 with nvidia drivers. So my next decision is whether to risk a lot of points while I switch it over to another system during the race.. Maybe I could start with the dual 980TI's, almost the slowest cards in my fleet, and 2 in one box.

 

[tiwake]

This thread is amusing if only because of hiigarian not being a very good process/tutorial writer, and how a bunch of people seem to like it? heh. Regardless, things will get cleaned up and better.

I mostly wanted to say that the nvidia drivers on linux require X to be installed (linux' GUI) to just run OpenCL/CUDA processes. Its a hard requirement for the driver and is dumb honestly, but its still a requirement.

I follow phoronix news articles pretty closely, and one of the things that is coming is open source headless OpenCL (ROCm) drivers for AMD videocards. Many of the developers lurk on phoronix forums and give insights on various things, like, how AMD internally is using Folding@home as one of 4-5 test software suites to test their driver development against. So thats something to look forward to, at least on linux.

Back when BigAdvanced work units were a thing, myself and another guy had some pretty extensive tutorials on getting the maximum PPD out of multi-processor AMD systems, including overclocking. Back then it was pretty incredible to be getting 400k PPD... heh. But they ended BigAdvanced work units because folding.stanford was getting money from EVGA for videocard promotions.

Oh that reminds me, with EPYC coming to us lowlife sometime soon™, it is possible to overlock them. https://github.com/r4m0n/ZenStates-Linux
I would expect such a processor to be getting about 400k-500k PPD without too much effort... double that for dual processor system.

 

[Markfw]

OK, So I changed the hard drive to a new box, but when I try to add GPU's to fahcontrol, it says no GPU's available. Dual 980TI's

So I installed nvidia-387 and it looked like it worked, and rebooted, but same problem.

 

[StefanR5R]

Are you sure that the open source Nouveau driver was disabled, and the binary Nvidia driver took over? E.g. the command

lspci -v​

should show which kernel driver is bound to each PCI(e) device. And of course the Nvidia control GUI and various Nvidia CLI commands (nvidia-settings, nvidia-smi...) would probably complain if the wrong driver is at the helm. Not sure about Lubuntu, but there may be a System Settings GUI which lets you select drivers.

 

[Ken g6]

Well, let's see. The first thing to try is `glxgears`. If that doesn't run your drivers aren't running properly.

You might also try installing libcuda1-387. (Did you mean 384? I've had no trouble with the 384 drivers.)

And if that still doesn't work, stop and restart your FAH service after rebooting. I've found BOINC needs that.

$ sudo service FAHClient stop
$ sudo service FAHClient stop

 

[Markfw]

I had my chemo today, and after 1/2 hpur, I switched back to the windows hard drive. So when I feel up to it tomorrow, I will try these.

And thanks a lot. With 10 million ppd on the line, I could see one million ppd from just going to lubuntu. It just may take a lot of help, and time for 12 systems.

 

[tiwake]

there is a bug with folding@home not downloading GPUs.txt leaving that file essentially blank. GPUs.txt is a whitelist and if your GPU is not on that whitelist it will not work. The correction is in the instructions that hiigarian provides.

 

[biodoc]

OK, So I changed the hard drive to a new box, but when I try to add GPU's to fahcontrol, it says no GPU's available. Dual 980TI's

So I installed nvidia-387 and it looked like it worked, and rebooted, but same problem.

Make sure the nvidia-modprobe utility is installed. The utility loads nvdia kernel modules every time the machine boots.

sudo apt-get install nvidia-modprobe

An easy way to check to see if the drivers are installed is to run "nvidia-settings" (without quotes) in a terminal window.

 

[Markfw]

Is 88 gig enough for Linux mint 18.3 and F@H ?

 

[tiwake]

3 gigs is enough.

 

[TennesseeTony]

Lol, surely that's a typo? 8GB RAM is plenty Mark.