Folding@Home

[tinca]

Hi all,

we have just reached another milestone. We have managed to get into the 1200's (1282 precisely).

Well done to everybody.

Best regards Keith

[tinca]

Dok,

sorry I missed your arrival. I only look down the bottom of the list for newcomers. I missed you as you are already much further up the list.

Very impressive, and well done to you.

Best regards Keith

[Roodog]

Just came across this thread, so I've joined up. I presume Team Linux Mint is still a goer?

[tinca]

Roodog,

glad to see you.

The mint folding team is certainly a goer, as we are still rising up through the world team ranking.

Your contribution will help us go faster and further.

Best regards Keith

[Dok]

Hello Everyone!
I'm a long time Folder and short time Mint user (about three mos now, been using Ubuntu for years). I saw your Folding team so switched a couple systems over. This is a great forum!
Brad

[tinca]

Hi all,

thanks to the added push being supplied by our newer users we have now passed yet another milestone.

Our folding team is now 1199 out of 171165 teams worldwide.

Ever onwards and upwards.

Best regards Keith

[tinca]

SmallerNuke,

welcome aboard.

Best regards Keith

[rfurgy]

Count me in! Finally got SMP 6.29 up and running in 64 bit Mint 8.
Lets get up that ladder!

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&teamnum=76140&username=rfurgy

[tinca]

rfurgy,

welcome to the mint folding team.

with your added input we should be able to make a bit more progress. We are currently 1104 out of 175595 teams world wide. I have been waiting a while for us to get into the 1000 group.

Best regards Keith

[Carl]

Just remembered to install Folding@Home haven't really used it since my Ubuntu days =] although for some reason it's making my laptop fan run constantly so I'm afraid it might stay off longer then on

[rfurgy]

Is there a section dedicated to FAH in this forum?

Wondering cuz we might want to get some how-to pages written up. Didn't really find any pertaining to Linux Mint 8. I know it's a lot like Ubuntu but I managed to get things screwed up during my SMP install and had to redo it some four times to get it right. As well as maybe some other info like 3rd party software available to use to monitor FAH if you have multiple clients running or the non GUI client. Some how-to sections on those wouldn't hurt as well. Also asking cuz I'm wondering where people post if they have issues with FAH and Mint. Didn't really see a section for all this.

Maybe I didn't look hard enough.

[tinca]

hi Carl

Welcome to the Mint folding team. I can't speak for your personal laptop, but I did have a HP laptop than I ran 24/7 for over a year on folding, before I gave it to my son. If you can obtain a laptop cooler to stand your laptop on, then that would help, as protein folding does stress the CPU, so a good airflow is important. Make sure that you give the laptop a good spurt of compressed air now and then to clear any dirt and dust from inside it.

rfurgy

As far as I know this is the only place where you can find any information concerning protein folding.

At present I am folding fah3 units, and as you can see by my signature I have a Q6600, so you should be able to obtain the same sort of results as I do.

You can check on the teams performance here http://kakaostats.com/t.php?t=76140

I look forward to seeing you both on the board.

Best regards Keith

[rfurgy]

So what's our next milestone(s)?

[tinca]

rfurgy

our next milestone is to go below 1100. We have just slipped a place and are down at 1105 overall.

Best regards Keith

[rfurgy]

Sweet, I'll be turning in my first WU for Team Linux Mint in about an hour and a half. It'll be a nice first step in @ 1920 points. Let's hope I can keep getting high value WUs and am able to keep my PPD 1800+
I was going to fold for Overclock.net but I shortly realised that I truly didn't like the performance in Windows Vista (clients seemed buggy) so that's when I switched over to my Mint and figured out how to get the SMP up and running. During the process, I came to wonder why I wasn't going to fold for Team Linux Mint and figured the switch would be a better choice because I totally support Linux, specially Linux Mint and Ubuntu.

Happy folding everyone!

Well, it would appear that my first WU got corrupted somehow and the server wouldn't accept it (what a bummer). Made my FAH dump the core and delete the entire work. So much for my good foot in the door. It's all good though, I took the opportunity to make sure I was getting the a3 cores and also made some other adjustments just so I don't have the client starting as a service with the -smp -verbosity 9 switches. Decided they are better off in the -configonly so I have better control of these settings.

Looks like I'll be redoing the a1 core that botched the first time around before I can get an a3.

[tinca]

rfurgy,

with reference to the Fah1 unit that you lost. Over the past few weeks (since using ext4 file system, I have no idea if it is connected) I have had four fah1 units all numbered 2653 all fail with the error
[21:01:05] Client-core communications error: ERROR 0x12
[21:01:05] Deleting current work unit & continuing...

These Fah1 units take a long time to complete, and if and when you start on the Fah3 units you should be able to get 4000 ppd.

I am currently running Fah3 units without any problems (he says, adopting a praying position). My terminal start up line is
./fah6 -smp 4 -advmethods -forceasm -verbosity 9.

I will keep looking for you

Best regards Keith

[rfurgy]

It's going to take me longer to get my first WU in.
I've been messing with startup settings and finally got it set how I want it. But at one point I think I had two instances of SMP running at the same time and it screwed up some of the work. Seems I'm back to square one again .
I'll get this yet, darn it.

I found something interesting:
If running an Intel chip with HT you can effectively double the threads SMP uses. Normal SMP runs 1 per core, but HT gives you a virtual core for each real core. So an Intel Quad with HT = 4 real cores + 4 virtual cores = -smp 8
Found this on an overclocking site where they discussed thread manipulating in the SMP to address Multi-Core-Multi-Processor set ups like full blown servers use. One guy was actually having to set his FAH at -smp 48
So if you have an Intel chip with HyperThreading turned on, just multiply the number of physical cores by 2 and that is what they recommended setting SMP at. I saw claims of 10k-25k PPD. Might be for higher end machines but I still think it's worth looking into.

[rfurgy]

Just had an idea that might be worth a look.

We all know that PPD production is important for folding teams. So I'm sure we all would like to squeeze extra out of our dedicated Linux Folding PCs.
Let's say you set up a dedicated Linux box to F@H and won't use it for anything but that. Then running unnecessary programs and services can bite into CPU usage thereby hindering PPD production. Why not install Linux Server with the alternate CD and choose not to install any additional packages. This will give you the most stripped down version you can get. Your basic command prompt Linux with network, no desktop, no apps, no gui's, etc.... I think you get the point. From there, use all the command prompts to install and run your client.

Haven't tried this yet but will be, although everything will be command prompt, this should greatly decrease CPU usage by anything other than your F@H client. I'll let you all know how it goes.

*EDIT* Got it up and running
Core_b4, 10007 (R3791, C2, G0)
1) Athlon 1400 (1.4GHz) Single core, FAH6.02 in Ubuntu Server with no desktop. Averaging 1% @ 12mn (not sure if this is good or not, trying to find comparison info, if needed I'll install the desktop and see what it produces from there)
2) Athlon 1400 (1.4GHz) Single core, FAH6.02 in Ubuntu Server with gnome desktop, client running in terminal on desktop. Averaging 1% @ 17mn, I didn't think it was going to be that much of a difference. That's 500mn longer (8.33hr Longer).
3) Currently looking for an extremely light weight Distro to test on.
Time to finish job at current rates:
1) Would finish the job in 1200mn (20hr)
2) Would finish the job in 1700mn (28.33hr)
3) Results coming soon

[rfurgy]

We made it up to 1103

Do I smell a new Linux Mint distro cooking up?

What does everyone think about having a special Linux Mint FAH distro which could create the ideal FAH environment?

And does anyone know what it takes to actually spawn a distro? And maybe somewhere to get guidance for doing such a feat?

Any thoughts or ideas?

[rfurgy]

Woot! Team rank @ 1101

Hey, what kind of set ups does every one have for folding?

I'm currently Linux SMP 6.29 in Linux Mint 8 as a service.
CPU: AMD Phenom II x3 2.8 GHz OC'd @ 3.3 GHz