Q6600, SMP, GPU, fahmon, etc

MGP

MGP

MGP

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I'm rather confused (not that difficult to achieve). I've tried to follow Sirius B's SMP guide, but it's raised more questions than it solved.

I've just upgraded my CPU and GPU. I now have Windows XP, 2 GB RAM, a Q6600 (at stock - a mild overclock is something for the future) and an ATI4870 GPU.

Previously with an E6600 CPU, I simply had one windows SMP runnning from the command line. If the PC crashed, it was set to autoreboot, and with a small batch file in the startup folder, and auto logging on, folding would normally restart without undue delay.

I still have that single windows SMP running. I've also been able to add the GPU client under windows. So far so good.

I know I should be able to run two or possibly three SMP clients. So I looked at the guide. That implies I have to use linux under vmware to run more than one SMP at a time :confused: Can I run windows only clients. If I want more than one SMP, do I run them all under the single linux and vmware install, or do I need a separate vmware / linux per client. This seems especailly confused when you only have 2 processors under vmware, yet the quad core offers 4? If I have to run 2 of more vmware clients, any idea how to install this to different instances.

Can vmware with it's linux servers be set to auto run as a service, so I can fire and forget.

Can I get fahmon, running under windows, to access the fah clients running under vmware. Otherwise there seems to be no way of monitoring if it's working or not. Linux is an absolute mystery, so I have no idea how to access or monitor stuff from within it.

If I were to run multiple instances of SMP under windows, has anyone been successful and done this as a service installation yet? It would be the preferred option for me rather than messing with the dark side.
 
You can run two Windows SMP clients without any issues. The second client needs to be installed to a different folder ofcourse. LinuxSMP gains a few more ppd, but it'll use a lot more RAM.

And gaining access to the linux clients through FahMon is as simple as setting up Samba in the linux VM.
 
MGP said:
I'm rather confused (not that difficult to achieve). I've tried to follow Sirius B's SMP guide, but it's raised more questions than it solved.

I've just upgraded my CPU and GPU. I now have Windows XP, 2 GB RAM, a Q6600 (at stock - a mild overclock is something for the future) and an ATI4870 GPU.

Previously with an E6600 CPU, I simply had one windows SMP runnning from the command line. If the PC crashed, it was set to autoreboot, and with a small batch file in the startup folder, and auto logging on, folding would normally restart without undue delay.

I still have that single windows SMP running. I've also been able to add the GPU client under windows. So far so good.

I know I should be able to run two or possibly three SMP clients. So I looked at the guide. That implies I have to use linux under vmware to run more than one SMP at a time :confused: Can I run windows only clients. If I want more than one SMP, do I run them all under the single linux and vmware install, or do I need a separate vmware / linux per client. This seems especailly confused when you only have 2 processors under vmware, yet the quad core offers 4? If I have to run 2 of more vmware clients, any idea how to install this to different instances.

Can vmware with it's linux servers be set to auto run as a service, so I can fire and forget.

Can I get fahmon, running under windows, to access the fah clients running under vmware. Otherwise there seems to be no way of monitoring if it's working or not. Linux is an absolute mystery, so I have no idea how to access or monitor stuff from within it.

If I were to run multiple instances of SMP under windows, has anyone been successful and done this as a service installation yet? It would be the preferred option for me rather than messing with the dark side.
Click to expand...

The GPU2 client defaults to machine ID 2, so I would assume you could install Win SMP clients as Machine ID's 1 and 3 in seperate folders, as Cob say's, and everything should be hunky dory.

I haven't tried service mode yet as that comes with a warning that it simply may not work lol.

But I dont see why you couldn't still use your batch file to start the two SMP clients as the GPU client autostarts ok for me as it's just in the start menu startup folder.
 
It sounds like trying two Windows SMP clients would be the easiest solution for you. However, they don't always play nicely together. I haven't tried it personally, but from memory the biggest problem is that when you stop one client, the other one tends to go crazy and delete the WU. I think that was based on experiences from the 5.91 client though, so you might want to try the upgrade to 5.92 as it uses a more stable multithreading implementation.

If it doesn't work you could try one WinSMP client alongside one Linux client - post back if you want to try that and we'll help you out :)
 
oceaness said:
Would the -local flag help with that?
Click to expand...

Probably not, as I think it's a problem with the network implementation that the cores use to communicate with each other rather than an issue with files. Definitely worth trying it with the newer SMP client though.
 
Cheers. looks like I have some experimentation to do. If only computing stuff was simple :(
 
Okay it took forever and I'm sure I could have found something more pressing to do around the house, but I banged out a simple page of definitions to point newbies to. The link is below and can also be found in my sig:

http://www.theheyes.co.uk/folding/definitions.html

It's not anything amazing, it just a brief rundown of terms we band about on here. Where depth is needed I've provided a link, as there is no point repeating stuff that's already out there. I've had a look over it but if you see any errors, out of date information or just downright lies let me know and I'll amend it. I forgot to link to SB's SMP guide and the GPU2 guide (was that mattus?) so I'll do that whenever - I don't want to see another html tag for a few days.

edit - the usual applies - doesn't centre in IE properly (I forgot to rejig the css, no one cares though). It looks better on OSX/Firefox but then everything does. yadda yadda
 
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That's really good stuff theheyes, very informative and useful.

I was thinking earlier that the sticky could use updating - it was brilliant for its time but it'd be good to update it to explain how to make the most out of the SMP and GPU clients. We could incorporate the excellent SMP guide and I'll smarten up the GPU guide a bit - would be great to bring everything together in one place!
 
nice work Mr Heyes. It will no doubt help newbies.

However, I fold as Borged_by_MGP, and have been around a while. However getting more than one client to run at a time on the PC is proving more of a challenge than I really needed.

As suggested, I've tried setting up a linux share using samba in vmware. No share shows up. :(

I've tried following the instructions to install the fahmon client within vmware. I get some silly error message to do with the g++ install.

Basically Linux and me clearly do not agree. I'm stuck with windows XP. I'll have to do battle with multiple installs and services.
 
Don't bother setting up FahMon within Linux - not much point if you're running in a VM because you'll have to open the VM console to see it. The Samba share is the best way.

This is the way I do it in Ubuntu - probably different in other distros. From the terminal:

Make sure that Samba is installed - sudo apt-get install samba smbfs

Edit the config file - open it with sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf. Find the WORKGROUP setting and change it to the name of your network. Page down to the bottom and add an entry for your FAH folder:

[fah]
path = /home/username/fah (change as necessary)
read only = no
browseable = yes

Save the file and quit (Ctrl+X). Now you need to add a user and set a password:

sudo smbpasswd -a <username>

Now restart Samba:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Now you should be able to access the share by typing in the hostname of your VM in Windows Explorer, e.g. \\ubuntu. Once you've got that working you should be able to add it to FahMon.

(Might well be some mistakes there - it's late and I suck at Linux :p)
 
I had real problems previously setting up the samba share. In the end I removed all the crap that was in there and set it up like this:

samba.png


Hope this helps :)
 
Well done theheyes. Surprised you mention Huey Lewis & the news, I didn't realise you were that old. Must be the Saturday mornings watching Swapshop:) Happy days.
Mattus & Yeggstry. Having tried & failed with samba before maybe I'll give it a 2nd go. How do I find out my network name? & what is the host name of my VM, server string, netbios name? I need K.I.S.S. instructions to follow - well at least the first time. Ta.
 
Pilgrim57 said:
How do I find out my network name?
Click to expand...

Type 'systeminfo' from a Windows command prompt - it should be listed under 'domain'.

what is the host name of my VM
Click to expand...

You'll have configured it when you installed Linux. You can find it out by typing 'hostname' from a terminal.

server string, netbios name?
Click to expand...

Server string: doesn't really matter, just controls how your VM advertises itself (will show in the title bar under XP SP3 when you're browsing the share)

Netbios name: I didn't bother with this - I don't think it matters but Yeggstry can give you some advice.
 
Your network name and VM host name are the same as the netbios name, which you can specify as anything. I kept it short so the network path in Fahmon is small - \\FaH1\fold\CPU1\ is the path I use. You should be able to browse to that in explorer.

The server string isn't important, it just gives you a description of the machine.
 
never got ubuntu server/VMware to play ball with windows for me
- justed opened up the vmware every so oftern to check all was well (which it always was)
most stable client I've ever used
 
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