Hello burakreis,
Ubuntu 64 is cheaper. It uses power management defaults that slow down the clock on AMD Barcelona chips (and probably Nehalem) if running only low priority threads, such as BOINC applications, so it is a good idea to read up on how to change the default setting.

Lawrence

Added: Also be sure to download the 32-bit Linux libraries to run 32-bit applications. The libraries run in 64-bit mode - much faster than Linux 32.

I want to use all resources, too, and I use only UBUNTU. I think, that it would probably be the best to run BOINC either before even starting UBUNTU itself or to run UBUNTU starting only the very vital elements of UBUNTU. For example, without starting the graphical surface of UBUNTU.

I suppose, that I could probably achive this goal somehow changing the startup sequence of my computer. But, I do not know how to do this in practice.

So, how change the startup sequence in UBUNTU (and if you like, for other users, too, in Windows) if I want my computer to run only BOINC, and no other unnecessary background programs. The processor should think only about BOINC

Thanks in advance for any help
Martin

Hello Jean,
could you please explain which difference Umbuntu 64 BIT and Umbuntu 32 BIT makes to
BOINC?
On which machines (computers) Umbuntu 32 Bit is better than the 32 Bit Version?

Additional questions:
I bought an industrial computer (workstation) especially for BOINC.
The machine has two CPUs.
Does BOINC and Umbuntu automatically use both CPUs
Thanks a lot in advance
Martin

Not only can 64-bit processors move more data at once, but they also have an improved architecture (vs 32-bit ones) and additional enhanced instruction sets which can be used only when running with a 64-bit operating system, e.g. Ubuntu 64 or Vista 64. That is the reason why even applications which have not been compiled specifically for the 64-bit mode are performing more or less faster in 64-bit, although the benefit is less than if they had been compiled/optimized for 64-bit.

I think that any machine with a 64-bit processor should be more efficient if running with a 64-bit OS, although that may vary depending on machines, memory speed, selected projects, etc... Anyway, unless somebody corrects me, I think that it would not run slower than with a 32-bit OS, therefore go for Ubuntu 64!

Please note that the above applies to the science applications which are running in a machine, not to Boinc itself. Boinc is using very little processing power therefore it is not Boinc itself which brings the benefit.

By the way this is the reason why I did not feel concerned by your preceding posts in October last year: I have never envisaged to invest time in setting a machine without graphical capability, and even less for improving performance. Either the graphical interface of Ubuntu or BoincMgr will not use processing resources if you don't use them, so why bother and make your life more complicated on occasions where you would need them? And regarding BoincMgr, if you install Boinc in Ubuntu via the package manager it will be installed as a daemon (or a service in Windows words) and it will start in the background as soon as booting the machine, and it will not even start BoincMgr.

For your dual processor machine Boinc should normally detect all its cores, and it will use all of them if you make sure that the "Use at most xxx % of processors" is set precisely to 100 % (not to 99.999 or anything less!).

Happy crunching with your new machine! Jean.