How to setup VBox and Run Linux on your Windows System

[scole of TSBT]

Why 4 instances of Boinc?

Typically you never run a VM along with boinc on windows unless you are running a GPU app under windows and other app under linux but you must make sure the % processor usage is allocated correctly between the 2. There are reasons for having multiple VMs. The biggest being some projects have a hard limit to the number of WUs it will allow you to have in progress. If you are bunkering, you fill up one VM, then the others. If the project doesn't require linux or pay any better under linux, then it's much easier to setup additional boinc clients under windows. If you have dedicated cruncher and want the option to run projects under linux, you should consider setting up a dual boot system. It's not that much more work than setting up a VM.

[MindCrime]

Why 4 instances of Boinc?

When I was playing around with Linux, I had paused Boinc on Windows while I installed Boinc on Linux and ran some WEP wu's. When the instance of Boinc on Windows resumed from it's timeout, it locked up my rig or rather slowed it down that it became unresponsive.

The multiple instances of Linux, one it's so I can diversify what I'm running more easily if I'm running mulitple apps/projects. Also it's to dabble with different distributions. I'd like to get a mac os going some day. But mostly it's a simple and cheasy way to get goofygrid credit/hours, or for when WU limits are hit like Scole said. My setup on the 12c/24t t5500 is 3 linux vms all that use 4 threads each. So max threads they can use is half my total. It's my opinion that a lot of WCG projects pay slightly better on linux so what I would do is load up the linux vms first and then added windows threads of wcg until I felt I had the right overall load considering hyperthreading.

It seems that virtual threads are a bit more forgiving than the host's when it comes to CPU time. Like you said locking up. If you had a 4c/8t machine and setup a VM to use 5 threads and then you turned off your hyperthreading and launched the VM i bet it would work totally fine until you overloaded it and it would just bog but probably not crash the host.

In fact 3 of my windows hosts all have linux vms running on them. Right now since I think cosmology CAMB runs better on windows I have them all idled out just running nci. but when things change I'll often run 3threads on the Linux VM while the host runs a gpu.

[STMahlberg]

In fact 3 of my windows hosts all have linux vms running on them. Right now since I think cosmology CAMB runs better on windows I have them all idled out just running nci. but when things change I'll often run 3threads on the Linux VM while the host runs a gpu.

Some very cool whiz-bang abilities running separate VM's; I am intrigued.

If you have dedicated cruncher and want the option to run projects under linux, you should consider setting up a dual boot system. It's not that much more work than setting up a VM.

I've considered doing a dual boot system in the past but never followed through; I will have to revisit this.


Currently, I'm waiting for Linux to completely install on my Server. It seems that this has been an all morning process... once again more Windows issues than anything else. Once that's done, I'll come back to my main rig and finish what I started a few days ago.

[Bryan]

There is a performance penalty for running VMs versus native Linux. On my I7-3930s it is about 12%. On the dual Xeon X5675 machines it is about 28%. VBox doesn't handle multiple processors all that well. On the dual Xeon machines if you run 2 VMs with each using 12 threads it will produce more credits than running a single VM with 24 threads. It will produce much more running native.

The maximum number of threads VBox allows in a single VM is 32.

The VM is its own environment. If you are gunning for a new badge on WCG that is based on "hours" you can over commit the VMs and double or triple your hours. When we did the WCG time challenge there were several of us running 3 VMs of 21 threads on our 24 thread X5650 machines. We didn't get more credits than normal but we tripled our hours. Each VM was only getting 1/3 of the available "real" CPU time but inside the VM, BOINC and WuProp only see that the WU are utilizing 100% of the of the available resources of the VM.

If you go the route of dual boot then that is optimum since there is no penalty for using a VM. For most things having multiple instances of BOINC available is better than having VMs because they don't take the performance hit. But on all my machines I have 3-6 VMs on both Win and Linux because there are times they just come in handy

BTW, I also have Win7 VMs on most machines too. Now that I know how to do multiple instances of BOINC those will probably never be used again.

[STMahlberg]

I have a new problem. My server locked up installing Linux and I had to reboot it. Now when the VM starts up, it won't run Linux at all. Can I just delete the Virtual Box VM directory that contains the .vdi files or do I have to delete the machine and start a new one?

On a side note, my server is a 64 bit system; however when I run the VM it won't let me install the Linux 64 bit iso it will only let me install the 32 bit iso. What's that about?

[Al]

I have a new problem. My server locked up installing Linux and I had to reboot it. Now when the VM starts up, it won't run Linux at all. Can I just delete the Virtual Box VM directory that contains the .vdi files or do I have to delete the machine and start a new one?

On a side note, my server is a 64 bit system; however when I run the VM it won't let me install the Linux 64 bit iso it will only let me install the 32 bit iso. What's that about?

Sounds like you selected the wrong os install. I always select "other 64bit" and have never had an issue.

[Al]

Oh, I would delete the machine. An install working correctly should take about 5 minutes.

[scole of TSBT]

I have a new problem. My server locked up installing Linux and I had to reboot it. Now when the VM starts up, it won't run Linux at all. Can I just delete the Virtual Box VM directory that contains the .vdi files or do I have to delete the machine and start a new one?

On a side note, my server is a 64 bit system; however when I run the VM it won't let me install the Linux 64 bit iso it will only let me install the 32 bit iso. What's that about?

It's best to delete the machine (including all files, it will ask you this) and start fresh. As for only 32 bit version available, boot into BIOS and make sure you have virtualization enabled.

[STMahlberg]

Sounds like you selected the wrong os install. I always select "other 64bit" and have never had an issue.

32 bit is the only options it showed.

It's best to delete the machine (including all files, it will ask you this) and start fresh. As for only 32 bit version available, boot into BIOS and make sure you have virtualization enabled.

I will delete the machine and try again. Virtualization was the first thing I changed in the bios before I started; after rebooting I even went back to the bios to make sure it took.

I'll give it all another try.

Edit: Now it's giving my a 64 bit choice... I hate it when a computer makes me look stupid. lol

[scole of TSBT]

Do you have 32 bit or 64 bit boinc installed?