Nvidia Cards under Ubuntu Linux (x64)

SETI@home and SETI BETA - project now closed, maybe for good :-(
Post Reply
galacticminor
Active UBT Contributor
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:00 am

Nvidia Cards under Ubuntu Linux (x64)

Post by galacticminor »

Hi Guys,
         Got a question I was hoping I could get an answer for. I've installed an Nvidia Quadro card on one of my servers (With two more on their way!) and its working fine with the official Nvidia drivers. Boinc has detected the card, as has Seti@Home. In my event log, I can see that its detected it and it specifically says "Requesting Tasks for CPU and NVIDIA". My question is, Will it actually retrieve any work units for the Nvidia card? I saw something earlier which seemed to suggest I'd have to manually download/install the Lunatics software components to add this capability. So far its downloaded work units for the CPU, but not for the GPU.

-Andrew
david
Posts: 569
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 1:00 am

Post by david »

No,as far as i know SETI still doesn't process work units on graphics cards but if you have attached to the project you should get some for the CPU

  The optimization sites for SETI modify the code base to speed up the processing of work units so yes it would be a good idea to run them,installing them in Linux is quite easy

  I haven't run SETI for about 4 years now so someone who is more up to date may be able to throw more light on the subject

  David
galacticminor
Active UBT Contributor
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:00 am

Post by galacticminor »

Hello again,
               Thanks for the reponse David. Heres an update so far...

I've managed to get Nvidia work units to download onto the test machine. The official line is that the Seti@Home Nvidia work units are only built for Windows machines at this moment in time. However, the guys over at "lunatics" have written some applications for Linux so we can take advantage of it.

This is easy to do, and simply involves downloading the application and copying some new files (including a new app_info.xml) file into the setiathome.berkeley.edu folder in the boinc directory. The two main problems I found were:

1. Permissions - All files copied into the directory will need to have the same "ownership" as the username being used to run boinc. So in my case, its "Andrew" instead of "root" otherwise boinc cannot see the new files.

2. Hardware limitations - The custom apps are approx 250mb in size, all of which is loaded into the VRAM on the graphics card. If you are running a GUI (Like me) then this makes a 256mb card fall flat on its face as there simply isnt enough memory available after rendering the GUI. This may be overcome by switching the server to a Command-line only mode, but this isn't practical for me.

Ultimately, I've got it working and downloading work units, but cannot actually process them until my new NVS300's arrive later this week with 512mb of VRAM! I'll try and get them running..and post an update.

If anyone would like any help, or Ubuntu advice...please feel free to ask!

-Andrew
Post Reply