You will be better off obtaining BOINC through the repositories or synaptic. It will then self install for you.
Cheers

I have activated my email tab on the bottom of reply. If someone would please mail me.

Let me start by stating that I am not terribly bright, which is apparently why Windows appeals to me.

I tried running Linux Mint 16 on a spare computer, and I was able to successfully get BOINC to 'self-install' from somewhere on the interweb, but I had no idea (and no way of confirming) if it was safe to do so.

WCG had been running smoothly for a couple of weeks, so I then tried to connect to Einstein@home, to get it to run GPU workunits on the nVidia card. After a few days of not downloading or running any GPU workunits, I realized that it probably needed the NVidia driver for the card. That was the beginning of the end, and after half a dozen wasted hours (JUST TO LOAD A DRIVER!!!), I wiped the drive and loaded XP.

Linux seems like 64-bit DOS. It appears to be an OS built for people who like to play with OSs from their keyboard, not for people who want to be productive on the computer. I swear, getting anything done in Linux is like starting a Model-T, only an order of magnitude worse. Now that it has a GUI, it's like someone put a modern Lexus body on the Model-T, but to get any programs or drivers installed, you STILL have to go back to the command line - for EVERYTHING! It's like the mouse is verboten, and you should be ashamed to have to use it.

"OK, pull up the command line (FOR EVERYTHING), then type in some horribly cryptic, case-sensitive grouping of characters, and don't miss any spaces that may not show up on the screen correctly on your other computer, oh, and also, hope that no one has written anything malicious in the code that you'll never be able to decipher" is no different from "OK, first pull out the choke 2/3, pump the accelerator twice, put the spark to retard, then get out of the driver's seat, go around to the front, insert the crank handle, hold your right thumb off to the left, turn the handle clockwise (facing the front of the car) up to the 10 o'clock position, make sure your left leg is 2 feet due north of the radiator, while your right one is 1 foot northwest, then give it a firm crank counterclockwise, then hope it doesn't backfire and snap your wrist, and if it catches, then pull off the crank handle, run over to the spark switch, turn it to TDC, then ease the choke in to 1/3 at a rate of 1/10 per second ......"

Linux seems to remain an irretrievable disaster, an utter time vampire - even if it runs WCG faster, it requires too much of my time to make it worthwhile.

However, of course, if you can get it to work, good for you - I prefer to just put in the key and start it, then get where I'm going.

Best of luck

Tomahawk: I know how you feel. I tried Ubuntu when they first started saying that it would install drivers automatically. I think that was with the G or H version (gibbon, heron?). I couldn't get it to work and did some research into what I needed to do.

I went to a couple of sites and was like - what the unholy h*ll? You can't possibly be serious. But they were as serious as a BSOD. So I said screw this and went running back to mama Microsoft.

Linux is always going to be a tiny niche operating system until someone does something about the ease of use issue. Except that's never going to happen since it is an open, community supported OS. Just look at this chart of OSs by market share:



You can see that Linux only has 1%. Heck, Android is barely a toddler age-wise compared to Linux and it already has the same 1% share.

I think the only reason people bother with it at all is because it's free - at least until one factors in the fairly steep learning curve. Then, depending on how you value your time, it's quite a bit more expensive than anything else out there.

[old fart alert] I remember when Microsoft was promising a plug and play OS back in the 90's and the discussions about whether or not that was even possible. The point is that it takes a lot of time and effort to create device drivers that are well behaved. And it requires a lot of work behind the scenes of the OS to be able to integrate those drivers in way that is simple and straight forward for the user.

That's never going to happen with Linux since there is no monetary incentive.

edit: please note that the chart is from 2012 and so is about 2 years old. The installed base for Android is probably a lot higher now.

I would consider myself not quite a beginner but certainly not well versed in the dark art of Linux. The main advantage I have had is that I am part of a team that has at least a couple of folks with the necessary Linux beards and who seem to be on hand when, as is often the case, I have questions.

I am not really a true Linux user, my daily rig has Win 7 on it, but I do use Mint cinnamon for crunching.

Initially it was just monkey see, monkey do, with me, but over time I have managed a better grasp of what I am doing and why I am doing it albeit in the limited area of crunching.

I am not aware of such a thing here on WCG forums but I can either point folks at a couple of threads, on our home forum at XS, that provide the Monkey see part of this, or maybe people here think it would help to copy the relevant instructions to this forum.

Either way, the limited amount that needs to be learnt is far from insurmountable, mostly it is just a case of copy and paste or find and install.

Is this something that anyone would find useful??