Which distro to try?

[Meridian]

Thanks. I was aware of running processes in the background - I was just kinda hoping that Linux could be persuaded to do the Windows thing of putting BOINC Manager onto the equivalent of the System Tray. That is, a little icon rather than a whole tab. But yes, it's the Manager program which is what you see - as far as i can see BOINC itself runs in the background if the Manager starts it.


Next question: how can I script BOINC itself (that is, just the program, not the manager) to start whenever I log in as myself? I assume it can be added to .login? That is the file right?


M

[Ned Slider]

Next question: how can I script BOINC itself (that is, just the program, not the manager) to start whenever I log in as myself? I assume it can be added to .login? That is the file right?


M

I'm not sure .login is used on Linux - think it's more of an old UNIX thing.

Anyway, if you use bash as your shell (most Linux flavours do), then either .bashrc or .bash_profile do the same kind of thing.

Let me see if I can knock up a script for you...

[MrNovi]

I can't help with the script part, but since Linux tends to setup multiple desktops anyway (at least the KDE desktops that I tend to use) I usually set my Folding Terminal on one desktop and then switched to a different one to do anything else so it was out of the way. Might want to give that a try. Switching from one desktop to another is a lot easier in Linux than it is in Windows.

[Ned Slider]

I'm not sure .login is used on Linux - think it's more of an old UNIX thing.

Anyway, if you use bash as your shell (most Linux flavours do), then either .bashrc or .bash_profile do the same kind of thing.

Let me see if I can knock up a script for you...

OK, just done a bit of testing - .bash_profile gets read every time you login whereas .bashrc gets read every time you open a terminal, so any startup scripts need to go in .bash_profile not .bashrc or they'll get run every time you open a terminal window!

[Ned Slider]

OK, first up make a small bash script to run boinc like so:

#!/bin/bash

# Edit the path to your boinc directory
cd /home/meridian/boinc && ./boinc >> /home/meridian/boinc/stdoutdae.txt &

and make it executable.

Then put a line like the following in your ~/.bash_profile to call the script (I put it in my boinc directory).

/home/meridian/boinc/boinc-script

The output from boinc can be found in /home/meridian/boinc/stdoutdae.txt

If you try and login again to the machine (like over an SSH session), you'll get an error that another instance of boinc is already running. If you were really flash you'd probably write some error checking to check another instance isn't already running before trying to start another instance

BTW, it doesn't kill boinc when you log out either, so it'll still be running until you manually kill it or reboot

[Meridian]

Cheers - I'll try playing.


MrNovi

Yes, I'd considered trying that. I usually use KDE cut down to two desktops, and with only the tabs for the current desktop showing, so that would be an easy way.


M

[dawp]

have you looked at the add-ons? there is a init script for suse that you may be able to modify to get boinc to start at boot. had it running under suse10.2

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/addon_item...e-1.1.1.tar.gz

also here's a tray icon for once the client is running:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/addon_item...2Fboinctray%2F

[Meridian]

A couple of updates here.


First of all, I found the answer to the script thing: I didn't need one. Mandriva simply starts BIONC if it was running when you shut down last. After that I just left it in window 2 and used window 1 for everything else.

But that machine was dismantled a couple of months later to be replaced by the AM2 stuff from what used to be rig #2. My next project was to convert an XP laptop to a dual-boot XP/Mandriva machine. I couldn't do exactly what I wanted though, which was to get the bootloader installed on the secure digital drive. That way I could just remove the SD card and have an Windows only box, or fit it and have the dual-boot. But while having the card in place confused the partition recognition system, Mandriva otherwise doesn't seem to allow the drive to be a bootable option. Don't know if this is a BIOS issue or not.


Other than that, install was painless, with GRUB correctly setting up Windows to be bootable (I've had distros in the past which can't manage this). Needless to say though, two bits of hardware caused issues: the ATI X1700 gfx adaptor, and the Intel 3945 wireless NIC.

I started with the NIC because that was the one I really did want to get working. Mandriva wouldn't enable the NIC, even though it recognised it, but said that I needed to download a driver from sourceforge. SF in turn said I needed some other bits and piece. My first attempt to follow instructions resulted in errors, so I went back to Google. That in turn suggested that I needed the kernel sources installed, and I know Mandriva does not install them by default. So I fired up the install/remove hardware tool and started looking for them. I ticked them, then decided to find out what else I might want to load. And five minutes later I found the Intel NIC drivers, which are actually on the distro but aren't installed. I also located the Avivo ATI drivers and installed them as well. It took two attempts to get the wireless settings to work properly and i don't know why, because it was the same both times.

As a result I know have a working Mandriva laptop, with 1280x800 resolution (and a nice crisp picture) and wireless internet access. I can even see the other machines on the network.

I give me 6 points out of 10, and Mandriva 9. I'm docking them a point for putting drivers on the disk but not installing them, even when they know they will be required.


M

[howieh60]

Have any of you guys tried Linspire yet or gOS ? I am going to try them both as alternatives to expensive M$ software, especially when I build a box that just needs to do email and some light media duty. From what I've read about Linspire so far it seems to offer a clean GUI and a desktop easy to navigate for newbies to computers. I prefer free like gOS is but am willing to try a few distros that may include proprietary software.

Regardless I will keep reading here for information on what works well for noobs.

[Spankin Partier]

I tried Linspire a couple of years ago on a friend's computer, just after their name change. Personally I couldn't stand it. They took everything that I hated about Windows and tried to put it into Linux. The worst being forcing you to run as root.

They also didn't allow you to configure the hard drive the way you'd want. It was their way or the highway. We had a special case (2 hard drives) and it wanted to format the wrong one.

[chrispycrunch]

Side question about Ubuntu - it has an 18 month supported life span. What does that mean? After 18 months, expect a new version?

[Ned Slider]

Side question about Ubuntu - it has an 18 month supported life span. What does that mean? After 18 months, expect a new version?

I'm not 100% sure as I don't personally use Ubuntu, but my understanding is that there will be security updates available for 18 months. New versions tend to come out more frequently than that - about every 6 months I believe. So generally the current version plus the previous 2 versions would be supported at any given time on a rolling 6 month cycle. This effectively means you need to be upgrading every 12-18 months.

If this sounds like a laborious task then consider something with longer term support such as Ununtu LTS (Long Term Service) or a true Enterprise Class OS such as CentOS that has a 7 year support cycle and an 18-24 month release cycle.

[Meridian]

Another update.


I decided to try SUSE again as I've not used it since 10.2 a year or so ago. So I installed 10.3 tonight over the top of Mandriva on the laptop.

Good bits:
As usual, the install is well handled. SUSE picked good defaults, but is good at letting you choose other options. Unlike Mandriva which pretty much asks you which desktop then does the rest automatically. The Intel wireless drivers were installed by default after the hardware was detected.

Bad bits:
No ATI drivers in the distro in any form: you have to download them and install them yourself. I've not had time to try, but i gather the latest "one-click" drivers only work with 28xx cards - and I have an X1700. But I gather older one-click versions may work. And I can't get the interweb to work properly. I can ping the gateway, and I can ping other machines on the network, but I can't get outside the network even with the firewall off. I just get "Network is not available". I think the problem is the fact I have two network devices: the wired NIC, IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.11 and the wireless card, IP xxx.xxx.xxx.20. If I "ping xxx.xxx.xxx.11", it pings that once then starts pinging xxx.xxx.xxx.20 instead.


More playing later I guess...



M

[Spankin Partier]

Side question about Ubuntu - it has an 18 month supported life span. What does that mean? After 18 months, expect a new version?

This basically means that after 18 months, they will no longer do security updates or other improvements. But the good news, the system updater will notify you of the newer release before the 18 months are up, and you will given the option to upgrade the entire system to the latest version just like it updates any other security issues. Then of course, you'll need to do a reboot.

I did this on one of my machines just to try it out. This was the first time I ever allowed an OS to do a version upgrade on the fly. Well, it went perfectly smooth. But I should hope so, considering it wasn't a very elaborate install (the computer was a BOINC cruncher rather then an everyday beater ).

[Meridian]

Found the SUSE problem: forgot to set a default gateway. Or at least I thought I had but SUSE disagreed.


M