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kateiacy
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More options when Linux user presses "Join today" button

When a new person on a Linux computer presses "Join today" from the main WCG page, they are immediately taken to a screen for downloading the BOINC client. No information is given on that screen telling them that it would be easier and more secure for them to install BOINC from their Linux distribution's repository, if available.

I think it would be helpful if "Join today" took the Linux user to a screen that had links to instructions for installing for a few major Linux distros (especially Ubuntu, since I suspect that that is what a lot of them are running). The option to download directly from the WCG page would also be there, but not as the only visible choice.

Just a suggestion from a happy cruncher.
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[Aug 16, 2010 11:39:43 PM]   Link   Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
JmBoullier
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Re: More options when Linux user presses "Join today" button

Just a suggestion from a happy cruncher.
A very good one. I will make sure that the staff don't miss it.
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[Aug 17, 2010 1:00:14 AM]   Link   Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
uplinger
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Re: More options when Linux user presses "Join today" button

Kateiacy,

I will review our page that has the Linux installation. It is a very good idea, so I will try to see what else we can add.

Thanks,
-Uplinger
[Aug 17, 2010 9:37:24 PM]   Link   Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
codes
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Re: More options when Linux user presses "Join today" button

You should also point out that apparently Ubuntu is the only Linux distro that CPU time reports correctly for CEP2 work units. At least that was my experience trying four major Linux distros.
[Aug 18, 2010 2:07:06 AM]   Link   Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
JmBoullier
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Re: More options when Linux user presses "Join today" button

codes,
It was only
- for CEP2 WUs
- for your machines
and we don't know yet if the problem is with the hardware, the OS or with the way CPU times are handled in the CEP2 WUs.
And nobody else has reported a similar problem to date.

So don't expect to see a statement as absolute as yours on the download page. smile
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[Aug 18, 2010 3:25:39 AM]   Link   Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
pirogue
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Re: More options when Linux user presses "Join today" button

codes,
It was only
- for CEP2 WUs
- for your machines
and we don't know yet if the problem is with the hardware, the OS or with the way CPU times are handled in the CEP2 WUs.
And nobody else has reported a similar problem to date.
So don't expect to see a statement as absolute as yours on the download page. smile

It happened to me using Fedora. Both in VMs and on a physical machine. The physical machine was an older dual-Xeon 3.2GHz. Some worked correctly and some didn't.
If I noticed a screwy WU, I aborted it. I've since stopped using VMs altogether. I've also stopped running CEP2 on that machine.
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[Edit 1 times, last edit by pirogue at Aug 18, 2010 4:02:57 AM]
[Aug 18, 2010 4:01:48 AM]   Link   Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
JmBoullier
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Re: More options when Linux user presses "Join today" button

Thank you for reporting, pirogue.
Maybe that will help the techs to find what is going wrong with these WUs in these OS.
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[Aug 18, 2010 4:01:23 PM]   Link   Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
pirogue
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Re: More options when Linux user presses "Join today" button

Thank you for reporting, pirogue.
No problem.

It primarily was happening in the VMs, so I thought it was just me. I didn't notice anyone else having the problem.

The problem shows up as a very low percentage utilization in BoincTasks. The WUs show up in a different color, which makes them easy to spot.
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[Aug 18, 2010 7:09:59 PM]   Link   Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
JmBoullier
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Re: More options when Linux user presses "Join today" button

I think there is a real problem inside the CEP2 WUs with regards to handling CPU times at job transitions. Something like saving the CPU time too early at the end of a job and restoring it too late at the beginning of the next one.

Ubuntu is only better than the other distros but it has the problem too. Since the beginning of CEP2 it has been reported several times that the CPU time is more below the elapsed time than for other applications (for me, by about half an hour for a 5-hour WU), even in a dedicated machine doing nothing else, and we have assumed that handling the big files was the explanation to these low CPU activity stages reported by BoincTasks in Ubuntu as well.

Until now I was simply looking at the disk LED when I happened to notice a red line in BoincTasks. With no luck: nothing exceptional regarding disk activity.
After reading your post I have specifically watched a CEP2 process with Ubuntu's System Monitor while BoincTasks was showing no activity at all and in fact the CEP2 process has been running full speed during all that time.

At some point I wondered if there could be some kind of not reported ghosts jobs between the 16 official ones, but nope, no stealth process ID in the picture.
But when BoincTasks finally switched from 0 % CPU activity to 9x % the new job had already counted about 4 minutes CPU in System Monitor...

uplinger, any comment? confused
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[Edit 1 times, last edit by JmBoullier at Aug 19, 2010 9:04:15 AM]
[Aug 19, 2010 9:01:22 AM]   Link   Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
Sekerob
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Re: More options when Linux user presses "Join today" button

Where I look is the BT History. It gives the end times both for CPU & Elapsed. As yet not seeing anything weird happening there neither seen from remote with the BM special 6.6.76 that has the CPU and Elapsed columns side by side. I think it should be observable with that version since it is real time whereas BT has a lag.

BTW the uploading is going rather spiffy these last few days. The 19.6MB now takes less than 4 minutes, and that is with the bandwidth limited to 84KB up.

edit: The best efficiency on a left alone client I've seen is 93% on a 8:30 CPU hours taking task... that 35 minutes going to wait states, when concurrent DDDT2 jobs, not the lightest loose 2-3 minutes, often less. Seen 99.8% efficiency per BT, on a quad for this science on Linux.

It's now a few weeks since this has been flagged and suspect armstrdj is sweating his panties off getting to the nitty gritty of this. Of course as with Murphy laws always acting up, it will not be reproducible on Woz :P
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[Edit 1 times, last edit by Sekerob at Aug 19, 2010 9:22:57 AM]
[Aug 19, 2010 9:13:49 AM]   Link   Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
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