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I want to fold - actually my company does.

F

Fraggable

Platinum Member
I work at a school that gets a lot of old (mostly P3's and 1.1-1.8 Cellys and a few older P4's, AMD 1-1.7GHz (the school is in a fairly well-off area)) desktop systems donated that we don't really have a use for. Right now we have about 20 systems sitting on a table in the corner and tons of parts from other systems that we've disposed of. I recommended to my supervisor that we try setting them up for folding and she likes the idea. We also have a few students that work with us for a few hours a day as a computer science class and it would be great experience for them.

My question is where to start? I've already decded that Folding@Home is the best choice for us considering the school's interests and disinterests. I know there are Linux distros out there made for folding that can run off HDDs or CDs but I don't have a lot of experience with Linux myself.

I'm going to read the guide to Stanford folding at reddeyeexpress.com as reccomended by the sticky here but I need whatever helpful tips I can get. Remember, I have almost no experience with folding.

Thanks
 
welcome aboard 🙂

as a fellow folding noob i won't confuse you (or me 😛 ) by trying to help you but i know some of the more knowledgeable members will be by to help you out 😉
 
Hi Fraggable!

Thanks for your interest in joining TeAm AnandTech F@H, we really appreciate your enthusiasm!

As far as Folding on Linux - it's very easy. I've folded under three different distributions and it's worked the same for each. I used to run on Mandrake, a RedHat-based distro. But it got a little bloated and so I wanted to try one of the LiveCD distributions. I chose Overclockix - it worked OK, but LiveCDs tend to eat your RAM by turning it into a virtual hard drive, so performance suffered a little bit.

Most recently I have been using the Ubuntu distribution, it's very easy to install and manage. CDs are available for download right from their site.

Once you get Linux installed it's just a simple manner of downloading the F@H client from Stanford, putting it in its own directory, and running it from a terminal window. There's no complicated .tars, makefiles, RPMs or APTs to deal with. Just put your username, team name (we're 198), and toggle a couple settings, then off you go.

Good luck!
 
Originally posted by: kb3edk
Hi Fraggable!

Thanks for your interest in joining TeAm AnandTech F@H, we really appreciate your enthusiasm!

As far as Folding on Linux - it's very easy. I've folded under three different distributions and it's worked the same for each. I used to run on Mandrake, a RedHat-based distro. But it got a little bloated and so I wanted to try one of the LiveCD distributions. I chose Overclockix - it worked OK, but LiveCDs tend to eat your RAM by turning it into a virtual hard drive, so performance suffered a little bit.

Most recently I have been using the Ubuntudistribution, it's very easy to install and manage. CDs are available for download right from their site.

Once you get Linux installed it's just a simple manner of downloading the F@H client from Stanford, putting it in its own directory, and running it from a terminal window. There's no complicated .tars, makefiles, RPMs or APTs to deal with. Just put your username, team name (we're 198), and toggle a couple settings, then off you go.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks kb3edk and Smoke and Rise4310, I can't wait to get started. I'm downloading Knoppix now because that's the only version I have any experience with, we'll see how that goes. It's a good thing there's 'no complicated .tars, makefiles, RPMs or APTs to deal with' because I have no clue what most of those are. 99% of my life was spent on Windows 98SE-XP and now Vista.

I'll make sure i'm in Team 198.

One question I had, when running this many systems at once, do you guys use one monitor and just plug it into each system when you need to check it or do you have a better method? is there a way to monitor them over a LAN?
 
If you want, I have about 20 ubuntu disks I could send your way 😛

If you cover shipping.

Its a great os, easy to set up and administer as well.

Good luck and welcome to the team.

Mike
 
Originally posted by: Fraggable
One question I had, when running this many systems at once, do you guys use one monitor and just plug it into each system when you need to check it or do you have a better method? is there a way to monitor them over a LAN?
Click to expand...

i only have a couple rigs hooked to one monitor and i just use a KVM switch for that. mines a two port but there are 4 and 8 as well.

there are also software solutions but again, i defer to my more knowledgeable TeAmates 🙂
 
I think i'll use the plug/unplug way for now. the software s either too expensive or complicated for our purpose.

I'm going to run some experiments with Ubuntu and Knoppix on one machine for a week or so, then we'll get more machines on one at a time and go for stability. This is gonna eb a learning experience for all of us.
 
Originally posted by: Fraggable
I think i'll use the plug/unplug way for now. the software s either too expensive or complicated for our purpose.

I'm going to run some experiments with Ubuntu and Knoppix on one machine for a week or so, then we'll get more machines on one at a time and go for stability. This is gonna eb a learning experience for all of us.
Click to expand...

At the risk of going completely off-topic from F@H:

Ubuntu has a built-in Remote Desktop server, it is called "vino". It's compatible with the VNC protocol. How I've used it in the past:

1) Install VNC Viewer on one of your Windows boxes
2) Configure Remote Desktop Preferences in Ubuntu
3) Use the "ifconfig" command to find out what your Linux machine's IP address is (mine is on a subnet behind my router so its IP address is 192.168.1.100, if your network has static IPs obviously it will be something different)
4) vino uses port 5900, so from VNC Viewer in Windows just enter in <your IP address>:5900 (so for example, I do 192.168.1.100:5900) and you should be able to get right on.

I've only dabbled with this a little, and although I haven't tried this myself there should also be a way to get the vino server to start up on boot so you would never need a monitor plugged in to the box 😀


 
Originally posted by: kb3edk
Originally posted by: Fraggable
I think i'll use the plug/unplug way for now. the software s either too expensive or complicated for our purpose.

I'm going to run some experiments with Ubuntu and Knoppix on one machine for a week or so, then we'll get more machines on one at a time and go for stability. This is gonna eb a learning experience for all of us.
Click to expand...

At the risk of going completely off-topic from F@H:

Ubuntu has a built-in Remote Desktop server, it is called "vino". It's compatible with the VNC protocol. How I've used it in the past:

1) Install VNC Viewer on one of your Windows boxes
2) Configure Remote Desktop Preferences in Ubuntu
3) Use the "ifconfig" command to find out what your Linux machine's IP address is (mine is on a subnet behind my router so its IP address is 192.168.1.100, if your network has static IPs obviously it will be something different)
4) vino uses port 5900, so from VNC Viewer in Windows just enter in <your IP address>:5900 (so for example, I do 192.168.1.100:5900) and you should be able to get right on.

I've only dabbled with this a little, and although I haven't tried this myself there should also be a way to get the vino server to start up on boot so you would never need a monitor plugged in to the box 😀
Click to expand...

I like the idea, maybe in 5 years i'lltry it 😀
 
Welcome Fraggable :beer:

Glad you thought of TeAm Anandtech and Folding@Home

Sounds like a great project idea for the CS students.

-Sid
 
Welcome to the TeAm Fraggable :thumbsup:

If your computers are networked then you can use F@H Logstats to monitor your herd of folders. Here is the link to their frontpage: http://fahstats.sourceforge.net/ (You can also use this program to monitor the progress of individual computers if you do not have a network set up) For a great getting started tutorial visit MDE's Setup Guide. There are plenty of knowlegeable people on the DC forums so keep the questions coming, someone will be able to help you with just about anything 🙂

Good luck and happy folding 😀
 
Welcome Fraggable 🙂

There are several monitoring programs out there. Look here.

Learning how to use Remote Desktop would be a valuable thing to know for students.

And if you have any questions be sure to ask, as you can see there are lots of helpful people here 😀
 
I would have progress by now but 3 of our WAP's in the building died and were' trying to set up a new linksys router to replace them and it's not working right, so that's what i'm working on now. I'll hopefully get to this monday if not later today.
 
Thanks to all who have welcomed me to the wonderful world of folding.

Right now I have the first machine installing Ubuntu and it looks like it's working fine. It had some problem during setup with DHCP on my network, it said something like it couldn't find a DHCP server on the network so I skipped it. I assume it's something I can fix later.

I'll keep updating as things happen or I need help.
 
Yes, keep us updated! We are anxious to see how it turns out 🙂

And be sure to ask if you need help 😛
 
I said I'd update, so here it is. I left yesterday at 12 (I work here part time in the mornings) and left Ubuntu installing. Whn I got here this morning it said there was an error installing the base system and that I could go back and reinstall that part after it was done with setup, which doesn't make sense. I assume the 'base system' is fairly important to the thign working well. So I went back a few steps and repartitioned and formatted the drive again, and started the setup again and it seems to be working so far.

One thing I'm wondering about, when this this is done installing and I want to get the F@H pogram from Stanford's website, am I going to be able to just plug in the network cable and go? Or will i have to do something to make it obtain an IP or something?
 
Originally posted by: Fraggable
I said I'd update, so here it is. I left yesterday at 12 (I work here part time in the mornings) and left Ubuntu installing. Whn I got here this morning it said there was an error installing the base system and that I could go back and reinstall that part after it was done with setup, which doesn't make sense. I assume the 'base system' is fairly important to the thign working well. So I went back a few steps and repartitioned and formatted the drive again, and started the setup again and it seems to be working so far.

One thing I'm wondering about, when this this is done installing and I want to get the F@H pogram from Stanford's website, am I going to be able to just plug in the network cable and go? Or will i have to do something to make it obtain an IP or something?
Click to expand...

"it said something like it couldn't find a DHCP server on the network so I skipped it"

If it isn't plugged into the network it can't find the DHCP server to recieve an IP.On most networks you have to have a IP to connect to the net I believe.
 
Originally posted by: Freewolf
Originally posted by: Fraggable
I said I'd update, so here it is. I left yesterday at 12 (I work here part time in the mornings) and left Ubuntu installing. Whn I got here this morning it said there was an error installing the base system and that I could go back and reinstall that part after it was done with setup, which doesn't make sense. I assume the 'base system' is fairly important to the thign working well. So I went back a few steps and repartitioned and formatted the drive again, and started the setup again and it seems to be working so far.

One thing I'm wondering about, when this this is done installing and I want to get the F@H pogram from Stanford's website, am I going to be able to just plug in the network cable and go? Or will i have to do something to make it obtain an IP or something?
Click to expand...

"it said something like it couldn't find a DHCP server on the network so I skipped it"

If it isn't plugged into the network it can't find the DHCP server to recieve an IP.On most networks you have to have a IP to connect to the net I believe.
Click to expand...

The first time I got that message I didn't have the network cable plugged in, so I plugged it in, waited a few seconds and tried again and still got the message.

Ubuntu installation failed again, I'm going to restart and try again.

EDIT: third time's a charm. it's almost done installing and seems to be going great.
 
New problem: Unbuntu seems to have installed fine, now it's asking me to log in but I don't think I ever set up user accounts. Is there a default administrator account and password I can use?
 
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