Reading around the forums there's all sorts discussions of "optimize", including a "fantastic" solution resulting 16% improvement by renicing the BOINC science processes. Most tweakers will tell that the ''little'' gains can be made by getting rid of redundant and stealth services (background indexers for instance) ... manuals galore on google what to ditch. What I've been unloading when not being at the keyboard of the Linux quad is the heavily candied Desktop GUI / X11 server and it's paying off per the BOINCTasks result log list since midnight, remotely monitoring. Bracketed times are the reported CPU times as registered by WCG.

WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c254_pca007_0 04:56:01 (04:54:57) 07-02-2011 21:58 07-02-2011 22:00 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c254_pca009_1 04:58:17 (04:56:42) 07-02-2011 17:34 07-02-2011 17:36 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c253_pcb005_1 05:27:43 (05:26:12) 07-02-2011 17:27 07-02-2011 17:29 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c245_pr78a0_0 05:23:53 (05:22:20) 07-02-2011 17:22 07-02-2011 17:24 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c261_pdb000_1 05:37:33 (05:37:03) 07-02-2011 17:02 07-02-2011 17:04 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c254_sr45b1_0 01:37:17 (01:36:41) 07-02-2011 12:36 07-02-2011 12:38 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c254_sr34b1_1 01:37:52 (01:37:22) 07-02-2011 11:59 07-02-2011 12:01 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c254_sr34b0_1 01:36:22 (01:36:02) 07-02-2011 11:58 07-02-2011 11:59 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c249_pqa008_1 05:23:29 (05:22:04) 07-02-2011 11:24 07-02-2011 11:26 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c246_pca000_0 05:23:48 (05:22:30) 07-02-2011 10:58 07-02-2011 11:00 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c243_pca002_1 04:51:24 (04:50:29) 07-02-2011 10:22 07-02-2011 10:24 Reported: OK
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c241_pcb012_0 05:24:24 (05:22:59) 07-02-2011 10:22 07-02-2011 10:22 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_d194_pr78b1_0 05:31:54 (05:30:25) 07-02-2011 06:01 07-02-2011 06:03 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c241_pcb013_0 05:22:57 (05:21:46) 07-02-2011 05:35 07-02-2011 05:37 Reported: OK
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_d194_pr67a1_0 05:32:16 (05:30:31) 07-02-2011 05:31 07-02-2011 05:33 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_d197_pla008_0 05:07:16 (05:06:07) 07-02-2011 05:00 07-02-2011 05:02 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c254_sr02a1_0 01:38:16 (01:37:52) 07-02-2011 00:30 07-02-2011 00:33 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c254_sr02b0_0 01:39:14 (01:38:43) 07-02-2011 00:30 07-02-2011 00:33 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c239_pla001_1 05:11:12 (05:09:25) 07-02-2011 00:00 07-02-2011 00:02 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c234_pla004_0 05:10:42 (05:09:11) 06-02-2011 23:57 06-02-2011 23:59 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_d181_sr34b1_1 01:41:00 (01:40:18) 06-02-2011 22:52 06-02-2011 22:54 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c252_sr91b0_0 01:34:12 (01:33:45) 06-02-2011 22:49 06-02-2011 22:51 Reported: OK *
WCG 6.17 dddt2 ts02_c192_pqa001_1 05:42:20 (05:30:58) 06-02-2011 21:11 06-02-2011 21:13 Reported: OK *

The bottom one was the last one before doing a Ctrl-Alt-F2 to open terminal session for Ubuntu with Gnome Desktop, then:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

Restarting the GUI is easy and presents the sign-in screen, the desktop back up in 10-15 seconds.

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

or as it may be with my system:

start gdm

The newly learned from this blog page: http://theos.in/news/ubuntu-linux-shutdown-the-x-server/

What I got from it was upping the efficiency to 99.7% when the device is left alone and the added beauty which is a major plus over Windows. If the desktop completely hangs Ctrl-Alt-F1/F5 will still work and the GUI can be restarted, without BOINC ever noticing... just crunching on.

PS: Some of the reply stuff in there with control file editing is not for the feeble at command line level. Don't do it if you're not sure you're able to recover. RTFM of course. :P

Hi kate,

Yes, to confirm that the WIFI keeps running even when doing exit in the terminal screen, but for that there's still the network-manager and nm-applet commands. I do execute

sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off

to stop from the wifi going to sleep. If you use network-manager, it's been mentioned that it's a weak element having all sorts of nasty side impacts and something new is being coded for Natty Nharwal.

Must say that so-far Maverick is doing better in stability over Lucid, [as reported overlaid this on top of 10.04.] Not in the classic upgrade way as my LL had been so modded that I could not get it to do that.

Spiced up the terminals a bit [can't screen-shot (don't know how yet), but have a general info line at bottom on state of the system and a little menu [byobu **]. It says that the system has been up for nearly 7 days now. Would I've done all the contortions on any windows, it would have long BSODeed.

cheers

cheers

PS, interested in testing new builds and versions without burning every time a new Live CD?... visit this article how to do that from harddisk [probably from USB drive too]: http://www.webupd8.org/2011/02/how-to-boot-iso-with-grub2-easy-way.html#more

edit: and here a pdf from a german company, in english, for those that have windows as a former dearly departed and run Linux entirely without GUI (older bookmark from the time of Linux use contemplation). From GUI to Text: A Windows User's Guide to Running Linux without a GUI

(some of this stuff may have been mentioned before in this thread ;>)

edit2: ** screenshot with byobu and landscape-common, plus a manual

Hello Sekerob,

I have been trying to follow your advices (see the post above http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/...ad,28931_offset,80#306745 ), but it didn't really work.

Maybe because I have Ubuntu 10.10 and you only recently upgraded to this, so your advices were ok for 10.04, but I couldn't find the four pieces you mentioned after installing Lm-sensors.

Also, I think I am even less Linux adapt than you! ;-)

Do you have any suggestions (with simple instructions! ;-) ) to keep dynamically under control the temperature with Ubuntu 10.10?

I have a 4 core 8 threads i7 that is already using only 6 out of 8 threads, but still always around 70 C and I would like to avoid using the "Use at most ...% of the CPU time".

Thanks, cheers!

The problem with the BIOS control is that it alternates speeds... revs up too high to cool it down, overcools, then revs down until it heats up again above the threshold and on and on.

Yes, it's not all that simple, but when installing 10.10 it was really easy [see later posts in this thread then latakia quoted] This and This. My coolers are now set and dynamically controlled by the fancontrol service.

edit: then, not than

kate,

this order, when I did that, essentially causes here a session to crash but not to end the sign-in state, not fully unloading everything. In fact, found that other recovery efforts started using CPU time dropping BOINC efficiency, so my experience is to log out from the/all GUI sessions, then do the ctrl-alt-F1/F6 to get the terminal session. Sign in and run either

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

or

sudo service gdm stop

When restarting gdm the GUI session appeared almost instantaneous, and after signing in, pretty much everything loaded in a fraction of the time, confirming to me that lots kept lingering in memory limbo.

Daily reported runtime average is about 1.5 hours up from before for this quad, so it's to be worth doing this, particularly for those with heavily glossed up interfaces.

cheers