Boinc + Linux + GPU = pain

[dan]

OMG, I just spent about 6 hours figuring out how to get boinc GPU to work on my linux box. First there are about 50 ways to get the Nividia drivers install and only one of the 50 works. Then there is the problems with Boinc not detecting a usable GPU. Lots of ideas on this one. It comes down to Boinc being able to access the cuda drivers. The final fix was for me to set SELinux to permissive. Basically turning it off.

Dan

[Steve Bohlen]

Sorry you had so much trouble, Dan. Been afraid to take the plunge myself on a GPU for one of my Linux boxes in case it was a pain to configure. Now I know who to bug when I finally get a GPU. ;)

[zombie67]

I tried one looooong night, to get get cuda crunching to work with linux. Complete fail.

[Maxwell]

I tried one looooong night, to get get cuda crunching to work with linux. Complete fail.
There's a really easy way - send trigggl a 4-pack of his favorite beer, and give him remote access to your machine for a bit.:cool:

[trigggl]

A few steps that should be done in a specific order for cuda.

Make sure the nvidia driver is installed and working
Make sure nvidia cuda toolkit is installed
Make sure boinc is in the group video
reboot

[dan]

There is too much advice on how to do this and most won't work in your setup.

I ended up finding how to do it with "yum install kmod_nividia????". I had to rblacklist the nouveau drivers in grub.conf. Then had to make sure boinc had enough time after boot up to recognize the drivers by adding "sleep 6" to /etc/init.d/boinc_client. Then had to make sure it had access to the display drivers, so added boinc to the video group and added "xhost +" to the boinc_client script (not sure this was necessary). Then SELinux kept giving me failures, and all the fixes I found didn't work. Then I discovered others that never go SELinux to work, so I then modified /etc/selinux/config to make SELinux run in passive mode and it all worked.

Do not start with the drivers provided by Nividia this I eventually figured out how to work, but yum is the faster way.

Dan

I did install the Nividia toolkit, another pain (not sure it was needed).

[YoDude9999]

I think provides a lesson for linux.....Don't bother with it.

Yo-

[trigggl]

There is too much advice on how to do this and most won't work in your setup...
That's an understatement.



I ended up finding how to do it with "yum install kmod_nividia????". I had to rblacklist the nouveau drivers in grub.conf. Then had to make sure boinc had enough time after boot up to recognize the drivers by adding "sleep 6" to /etc/init.d/boinc_client.
Assuming a yum based package management system. ('apt-get install' on Debian based, 'emerge nvidia-drivers' on Gentoo, etc...) I think most distros today have a good graphical package management system that is easier to work with to get the right drivers installed and the x-server properly set up.



Then had to make sure it had access to the display drivers, so added boinc to the video group
This must be done on any distro. You're not going to get GPU support without it.



Then SELinux kept giving me failures, and all the fixes I found didn't work. Then I discovered others that never go SELinux to work, so I then modified /etc/selinux/config to make SELinux run in passive mode and it all worked.
One thing I learned when trying to create a Gentoo/BOINC LiveCD, you have to break your security to GPU crunch. Don't run BOINC on your secure servers. Don't waste your time trying to run SELinux on a cruncher. Secure Linux and BOINC don't mix. You have to break one to use the other. It's probably why you had problems with nouveau drivers. Secure Linux uses that instead of nvidia for security purposes. I guess they assume you're not going to be using your server for 3D gaming.



Do not start with the drivers provided by Nividia this I eventually figured out how to work, but yum is the faster way.
Good advice! You should always use the package management nvidia driver first and if it doesn't work, UN-INSTALL before trying the nvidia driver outside of the package management system (last resort).

So, here are some steps that should get most people working.


Install nvidia proprietary driver through the package management system.
(Will probably require a reboot)
(Get this working before bothering with the rest!)

Install CUDA with the package management system.

Add user 'boinc' to group 'video'.
(If you don't know how, ask.)

Reboot. (To be on the safe side)

Start boinc if not already started


I noticed on the AMD twins that X needed to be started for cuda to work, so it might be a good idea to have the window manager (gdm or kdm) start before boinc.

I like Maxwell's idea, though. Send me a pack of Old Rasputin Imperial Stout and I'll do it for you.

[Fire$torm]

There is too much advice on how to do this and most won't work in your setup.

I ended up finding how to do it with "yum install kmod_nividia????". I had to rblacklist the nouveau drivers in grub.conf. Then had to make sure boinc had enough time after boot up to recognize the drivers by adding "sleep 6" to /etc/init.d/boinc_client. Then had to make sure it had access to the display drivers, so added boinc to the video group and added "xhost +" to the boinc_client script (not sure this was necessary). Then SELinux kept giving me failures, and all the fixes I found didn't work. Then I discovered others that never go SELinux to work, so I then modified /etc/selinux/config to make SELinux run in passive mode and it all worked.

Do not start with the drivers provided by Nividia this I eventually figured out how to work, but yum is the faster way.

Dan

I did install the Nividia toolkit, another pain (not sure it was needed).


That's an understatement.



Assuming a yum based package management system. ('apt-get install' on Debian based, 'emerge nvidia-drivers' on Gentoo, etc...) I think most distros today have a good graphical package management system that is easier to work with to get the right drivers installed and the x-server properly set up.



This must be done on any distro. You're not going to get GPU support without it.



One thing I learned when trying to create a Gentoo/BOINC LiveCD, you have to break your security to GPU crunch. Don't run BOINC on your secure servers. Don't waste your time trying to run SELinux on a cruncher. Secure Linux and BOINC don't mix. You have to break one to use the other. It's probably why you had problems with nouveau drivers. Secure Linux uses that instead of nvidia for security purposes. I guess they assume you're not going to be using your server for 3D gaming.



Good advice! You should always use the package management nvidia driver first and if it doesn't work, UN-INSTALL before trying the nvidia driver outside of the package management system (last resort).

So, here are some steps that should get most people working.


Install nvidia proprietary driver through the package management system.
(Will probably require a reboot)
(Get this working before bothering with the rest!)

Install CUDA with the package management system.

Add user 'boinc' to group 'video'.
(If you don't know how, ask.)

Reboot. (To be on the safe side)

Start boinc if not already started


I noticed on the AMD twins that X needed to be started for cuda to work, so it might be a good idea to have the window manager (gdm or kdm) start before boinc.

I like Maxwell's idea, though. Send me a pack of Old Rasputin Imperial Stout and I'll do it for you.

Great info guys. Is there any chance the two of you could do a "How-To" so it can added to the others on the forum?

[trigggl]

Great info guys. Is there any chance the two of you could do a "How-To" so it can added to the others on the forum?

I could do a Gentoo how-to.

Getting the nvidia driver working is the hard part and that's going to vary depending on the distro. The best place to go for that is the message board of the distro. For Debian based distros, I use 'aptitude', but not everyone knows how to use that.

I have no experience with running CUDA on anything other than Ubuntu or Gentoo. Before I started using Ubuntu, the nvidia driver had to be installed by getting it from nvidia and installing it yourself. Obviously, things have changed since then.

I've basically been running nothing, but Gentoo the past 2 years. Perhaps we could get a user of each distro to write a how-to.

[dan]

Great info guys. Is there any chance the two of you could do a "How-To" so it can added to the others on the forum?

OMG! I knew I should of taken notes. :rolleyes: I did my install on fedora 14. I'm sure I could put together something, on what I did.

[Bok]

I've done it on RHEL and CentOS (Fedora is much the same).

[Fire$torm]

Trigggl, have you ever done a Minimal Ubuntu Install? I just found it existed! I think this could be a better platform for an Ubuntu GPU cruncher. Maybe not as compact as Gentoo but decidedly better than a full Ubuntu install.

JIC ---> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1155961 and http://wiki.dennyhalim.com/ubuntu-minimal-desktop

[trigggl]

Trigggl, have you ever done a Minimal Ubuntu Install? I just found it existed! I think this could be a better platform for an Ubuntu GPU cruncher. Maybe not as compact as Gentoo but decidedly better than a full Ubuntu install.

JIC ---> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1155961 and http://wiki.dennyhalim.com/ubuntu-minimal-desktop

My Dell came with a full Ubuntu install. When I switched to 64-bit, I did a full install.

On my two main computers (Dell with upgraded processor and new pc with old overclocked processor) I have a full Gentoo install. The twins running Gentoo at DrPop's place and the PS3 are the closest things I've done to a minimal install, but I put the Gnome window manager on all 3.

[dan]

Well I had to reinstall fedora, since I didn't install the 64 bit version first. To get nvidia drivers to work with boinc, this is what I did.



Fedora core 15
Login as root
Config yum to use RPM Fusion

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

Follow this:

http://fedoraunity.org/solved/video-solutions/nvidia-yum-kmod

Now Nvidia drivers are running

change the following in /etc/selinux/config
SELINUX=permissive

change this next in the start section just before the daemon statement of /etc/init.d/boinc-client

sleep 6
export DISPLAY=:0.0
xhost +

reboot

[joker]

I'll have a Coke.

[Fire$torm]

I'll have a Coke.

Make mine a Patrón w/Bass Ale chaser

[joker]

Make mine a Patrón w/Bass Ale chaser

If you can afford that, send me a fifth!!!!!!!

[Maxwell]

If you can afford that, send me a fifth!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4IRMYuE1hI

[joker]

I sometimes like to play that when I am cooking...............then other times I prefer this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrIYT-MrVaI

Helps me make a mean omelet!!

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am glad you changed mountain joker.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iWRjwOVFaAA/TKMrF9nTIuI/AAAAAAAAAFw/6sUJSgkWvx0/s1600/brokeback-mountain-poster.jpg

Plains Duke

[joker]

I am not gay!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Maxwell]

I am not gay!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wish I knew how to quit you, joker!

[zombie67]

I am not gay!!!!!!!!!!!!

You found a "cure" then? =))

[Fire$torm]

I am not gay!!!!!!!!!!!!


You found a "cure" then? =))

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

[Duke of Buckingham]

joker I will never more joke with you about that matter. You are not gay and if you were that was not my problem and for sure wouldnt change the person you are. I hope you to be a friend for long.

What matters to me, are not the little s**** of life because as a very wise man said shit happens. What really matters to me is who really are my friends and try never to see bad intencions on his sentences.

Communication can be a very hard proof on any kind of relation. My proof of good faith is that I am trying to communicate, the best I can in a language is not mine from birth. I dont know how to use the small little things that say "I am only joking" sorry if I offended you...

Sorry Duke

[zombie67]

Er, I thought we were all making jokes? I surely was. Doubly so, since I could not care less about anyone's sexual preferences.

[Dandasarge]

What? Jokers not gay?

I'm glad we have so many.. kinda pissed at the lesbian thing though. Gays= more girls for me.. Lesbians= more woman I have to deal with that will never sleep with me :(.

Why is this in the Linux + GPU topic? Other then Linux + GPU= Gayness.

[trigggl]

What? Jokers not gay?

I'm glad we have so many.. kinda pissed at the lesbian thing though. Gays= more girls for me.. Lesbians= more woman I have to deal with that will never sleep with me :(.

Why is this in the Linux + GPU topic? Other then Linux + GPU= Gayness.

Sadly, male penguins incubate the eggs while the females are off gathering food. Who chose that mascot anyways?

Oh, and Dandasarge, how is that different than the rest of the women?

[Duke of Buckingham]

Sadly, male penguins incubate the eggs while the females are off gathering food. Who chose that mascot anyways?

Oh, and Dandasarge, how is that different than the rest of the women?

8-} I would like to say that alfa males are usually best fathers than other males. There are some exceptions but not in the ape families. What, according to Darwin Theory, includes us. Alfa males are usually kind and have their supremacy not question, Like me you see. :))

Duke an alfa think that have been a beta project :^o

Always evolving Duke :o

[Maxwell]

Oh, and Dandasarge, how is that different than the rest of the women?
+1 to that. Why do you think joker's mom and I get along so well? She's the only one dumb enough to sleep with me... :cool:

[Dandasarge]

Sadly, male penguins incubate the eggs while the females are off gathering food. Who chose that mascot anyways?

Oh, and Dandasarge, how is that different than the rest of the women?

Different then what woman? There are 2 kinds of woman in this world, Woman who want me and Lesbian's? Its pretty cut and dry ;). I'm just so likeable. (this is all sarcastic)

[Cruncher Pete]

Different then what woman? There are 2 kinds of woman in this world, Woman who want me and Lesbian's? Its pretty cut and dry ;). I'm just so likeable. (this is all sarcastic)

According to your statement, logic tell me that you must be a Lesbian...Although I am a man, I must also be a Lesbian for I like the same things as they do...:)

[Dandasarge]

According to your statement, logic tell me that you must be a Lesbian...Although I am a man, I must also be a Lesbian for I like the same things as they do...:)

Yes I'm undoubtedly lesbian.

[Fire$torm]

Altough this thread focused on nVidia, I could really use some help with ATI.

System
Intel P4@2.8Ghz w/HT (Socket 478)
ATI HD 4850 (Ref. design)
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS x86
BOINC Manager 6.10.58
GKrillM
AMDOverdriveCtrl (Open Source ATI GUI OC Utility - sorta like Afterburner w/o the frills)

ATI Software
AMD Catalyst Proprietary Display Driver - Linux x86 & Linux x86_64
Catalyst Version: 11.11
Driver Packaging Version: 8.911-111025a-128237C-ATI
CCC Version 2.13

After mucking around I was able to get BOINC to recognize the 4850 using the following How-To's

3D Acceleration for your ATI card (Link (http://linuxhelp.150m.com/ati/ati.htm))
Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/Derivatives - GPU recognition fixes (Link (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=6307))

Then I attached the box to MW@H......... nothing but computation errors like the following

Stderr output

<core_client_version>6.10.58</core_client_version>
<![CDATA[
<message>
process exited with code 193 (0xc1, -63)
</message>
<stderr_txt>
Error loading Lua script 'astronomy_parameters.txt': [string "number_parameters: 4..."]:1: '<name>' expected near '4'
Error reading astronomy parameters from file 'astronomy_parameters.txt'
Trying old parameters file
Using SSE3 path
Found 1 CAL devices
Chose device 0

Device target: CAL_TARGET_770
Revision: 2
CAL Version: 1.4.1607
Engine clock: 625 Mhz
Memory clock: 993 Mhz
GPU RAM: 1024
Wavefront size: 64
Double precision: CAL_TRUE
Compute shader: CAL_TRUE
Number SIMD: 10
Number shader engines: 1
Pitch alignment: 256
Surface alignment: 256
Max size 2D: { 8192, 8192 }

Estimated iteration time 282.310000 ms
Target frequency 30.000000 Hz, polling mode 1
Dividing into 8 chunks, initially sleeping for 0 ms
Integration range: { nu_steps = 640, mu_steps = 1600, r_steps = 1400 }
Using 8 chunk(s) with sizes: 192 208 192 208 192 208 192 208
SIGSEGV: segmentation violation
Stack trace (15 frames):
../../projects/milkyway.cs.rpi.edu_milkyway/milkyway_separation_0.82_i686-pc-linux-gnu__ati14(boinc_catch_signal+0x120)[0x80a1e47]
[0xc18400]
/usr/lib/libaticaldd.so(+0x4a896)[0xfe8896]
/usr/lib/libaticaldd.so(+0x4ded4)[0xfebed4]
/usr/lib/libaticaldd.so(+0x4df30)[0xfebf30]
/usr/lib/libaticaldd.so(+0x2cc224)[0x126a224]
/usr/lib/libaticaldd.so(+0x2c1417)[0x125f417]
/usr/lib/libaticaldd.so(+0x2ee94f)[0x128c94f]
/usr/lib/libaticaldd.so(+0x2e429c)[0x128229c]
/usr/lib/libaticalrt.so(calCtxRunProgram+0x9c)[0x19b95c]
../../projects/milkyway.cs.rpi.edu_milkyway/milkyway_separation_0.82_i686-pc-linux-gnu__ati14(integrateCAL+0x8ab)[0x8069ffb]
../../projects/milkyway.cs.rpi.edu_milkyway/milkyway_separation_0.82_i686-pc-linux-gnu__ati14(evaluate+0x1b3)[0x8061e73]
../../projects/milkyway.cs.rpi.edu_milkyway/milkyway_separation_0.82_i686-pc-linux-gnu__ati14(main+0x3ff)[0x8060e3f]
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe6)[0x5dcbd6]
../../projects/milkyway.cs.rpi.edu_milkyway/milkyway_separation_0.82_i686-pc-linux-gnu__ati14[0x80608a1]

Exiting...

</stderr_txt>
]]>


One last thing, I did (at least I think I did) add boinc to the group video. No change.

HELP!!!!

[trigggl]

Then I attached the box to MW@H......... nothing but computation errors like the following


One last thing, I did (at least I think I did) add boinc to the group video. No change.

HELP!!!!

I assume you're using Ubuntu? Gentoo has pretty much the same boinc home structure as Ubuntu. I'm thinking that Ubuntu also probably uses a similar startup script. The startup script uses
su -m ${USER} -c boinc (options) to start boinc. Which means, the script uses su from root to run boinc as user boinc. For some reason on radeon cards 'su -m' causes {USER} to lose their priviledges to use video.

To make a long, confusing, boring story short, I had to change the ownership of /var/lib/boinc* to greg and just run boinc from the user account without the 'su -m'.

So, whatever your username is (root if you want to live dangerously), make sure they're in the video group and run this from a terminal.

boinc_client --dir /var/lib/boinc-client --allow_remote_gui_rpc --daemon --redirectio
I made an action in my Applications bar to do it so I don't have to remember it and type it every time. I also created an action to stop boinc.

boinccmd --quit

Obviously, if you do this, you need to disable the init script.

Don't know if this is the cause of the problem you're having, but it's something to be aware of if it does become your problem.

[Cruncher Pete]

I am glad you guys are having fun trying to run a GPU on Ubuntu. I gave up long time ago for I could not find a fix. At that stage, I was happy with Ubuntu but because of the Proprietary Drives running BOINC GPU's became a nightmare and eventually I gave up and returned to Win.

[Fire$torm]

I assume you're using Ubuntu? Gentoo has pretty much the same boinc home structure as Ubuntu. I'm thinking that Ubuntu also probably uses a similar startup script. The startup script uses
su -m ${USER} -c boinc (options) to start boinc. Which means, the script uses su from root to run boinc as user boinc. For some reason on radeon cards 'su -m' causes {USER} to lose their priviledges to use video.

To make a long, confusing, boring story short, I had to change the ownership of /var/lib/boinc* to greg and just run boinc from the user account without the 'su -m'.

So, whatever your username is (root if you want to live dangerously), make sure they're in the video group and run this from a terminal.

boinc_client --dir /var/lib/boinc-client --allow_remote_gui_rpc --daemon --redirectio
I made an action in my Applications bar to do it so I don't have to remember it and type it every time. I also created an action to stop boinc.

boinccmd --quit

Obviously, if you do this, you need to disable the init script.

Don't know if this is the cause of the problem you're having, but it's something to be aware of if it does become your problem.

Yeah, Ubuntu. Not ready to tackle Gentoo, but maybe next time.

Thx for the info. I give it a shot.
Which init script? This one ---> /etc/init.d/boinc-client

BTW: That ATI OC Utility I mentioned works very well, at least on Ubuntu. If your interested in a GUI tool have a look see (here (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODk1Ng))


I am glad you guys are having fun trying to run a GPU on Ubuntu. I gave up long time ago for I could not find a fix. At that stage, I was happy with Ubuntu but because of the Proprietary Drives running BOINC GPU's became a nightmare and eventually I gave up and returned to Win.

Ha. I was just happy to get as far as I did.

[trigggl]

I am glad you guys are having fun trying to run a GPU on Ubuntu. I gave up long time ago for I could not find a fix. At that stage, I was happy with Ubuntu but because of the Proprietary Drives running BOINC GPU's became a nightmare and eventually I gave up and returned to Win.

That would be singular (guy). Besides the email server, I haven't messed with Ubuntu in years. I'm Gentoo all the way.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am Ubuntu but I don't know a ***** . You that are the best could you explain what is the difference and how can we change for the best?

Very ignorant Duke.:confused:

That is for real I really don't know why I should change between Linux systems. But I would like to understand that.

[Fire$torm]

I am nowhere near the level of guys like trigggl & Slicker, but I think I can answer your question.

Ubuntu - Easy to install, has a lot of features and good online support. But because it has a lot of "stuff" it is also FAT.

Gentoo - Very fast, lean and highly configurable. In order to do this Gentoo has to be compiled from source code, built from scratch so to speak. You have to "tell" Gentoo what you want it to be. This requires knowledge, effort and time. Gentoo also has good online support but it is geared more towards knowledgeable users.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Thanks F$ that is enough for me. I would like to know if there is any Forum or site that I could go in order to learn all those stuff or that must be done by ourselves.

Duke

[Fire$torm]

Thanks F$ that is enough for me. I would like to know if there is any Forum or site that I could go in order to learn all those stuff or that must be done by ourselves.

Duke

Sure thing.

Official Ubuntu forum ---> (English) http://ubuntuforums.org/ --- (Spanish) http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/locallanguage#spanish

Gentoo Forum ---> (English) http://forums.gentoo.org/ --- (Spanish) http://forums.gentoo.org/viewforum-f-30.html

[Duke of Buckingham]

http://www.cartoonfile.net/ellvis-I-just-wanted-to-say.gif

http://www.greetingsisland.com/images/Ecards/thoughts-and-wishes/thank-you-very-much.gif

[Fire$torm]

Well in a moment of frustration I scraped the Ubuntu install and went to WinXP Pro *yuck*. The pissy part is I had the exact same problem with XP as I did with Ubuntu. Then I remembered that I have always had a problem with my 4850s using the newer Catalyst drivers above 10.10. Sure enough when I rolled back to 10.10 w/o OpenCL my problem vanished. Since I was using 11.11 with the Ubuntu install I believe this was the problem. I will have to hunt down the 10.10 version of the Linux driver and give it a shot at some point.

Anyhow, trigggl thanks for the help. I have learned a few new things so it was worth the experience.

[krackedpress]

What do you need to do to get the GPU projects to run on Ubuntu 10.04? From the graph, you can see the projects I run/ran. I know Collatz needs something, but I had to wipe my system many months ago and had to reinstall everything, except the data. I use to have a GeForce 220 or was it a 210 GPU that died within a few months. Then I had over a year of CPU only crunching. I need to get the GPU crunching again.

I was given a 9500 GPU card - slow but only one I currently have. Einstein tells me it has to wait for the GPU. All of the other projects I have tried does not give me any work. So What do I need to do to get the WUs and do I need to download anything else and install it? I want to do some GPU, even if it is slow. 4 cores working plus 1 GPU makes 5 WUs crunching instead of 4, even if the GPU is about the same speed as the cores.


Has anyone tried a Radeon HD 5550 1GB card? Newegg.com has a VisionTek for $60 plus shipping. It has 320 streams. The next one on the list for 320 streams is the same price, but it is after a large rebate.

Right now I have to pay a large Vet bill for my cat, but I still hope to buy a GPU card for my quad core Ubuntu 10.04 system.

So is there any help for my system? Or is is just a waste of time?
Please let me know.

[trigggl]

I was given a 9500 GPU card - slow but only one I currently have. Einstein tells me it has to wait for the GPU. All of the other projects I have tried does not give me any work. So What do I need to do to get the WUs and do I need to download anything else and install it? I want to do some GPU, even if it is slow. 4 cores working plus 1 GPU makes 5 WUs crunching instead of 4, even if the GPU is about the same speed as the cores.


Has anyone tried a Radeon HD 5550 1GB card? Newegg.com has a VisionTek for $60 plus shipping. It has 320 streams. The next one on the list for 320 streams is the same price, but it is after a large rebate.

How much memory does the 9500 have? You should be able to run Moo! on it. I would think PG PPS Sieve would also work on it. Are you in the 'video' group? Does boinc tell you that your card is detected? Have you rebooted after installing the cuda driver?

I haven't run a Radeon card on Ubuntu, but I had to do some weird hacks to use mine on Gentoo.

Are you running 64-bit? Some projects might not have a 32-bit linux cuda app.

[krackedpress]

How much memory does the 9500 have? You should be able to run Moo! on it. I would think PG PPS Sieve would also work on it. Are you in the 'video' group? Does boinc tell you that your card is detected? Have you rebooted after installing the cuda driver?

I haven't run a Radeon card on Ubuntu, but I had to do some weird hacks to use mine on Gentoo.

Are you running 64-bit? Some projects might not have a 32-bit linux cuda app.

I have the latest driver from the Ubuntu 10.04 repository. My MoB graphics was nVidia so it is using the same drivers. As for CUDA drivers, is there a different one than the one in the repository? I have the latest one installed that I can install with the repository.

The BOINC system states "No Usable GPU found" instead of "no GPU found" when I did not have the 9500 installed.

driver - 195.36.24
memory - 1024 MB
CUDA cores - 32

I run Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit on a quad core AMD Phenom 9650 @ 2.30 GHz.

Video Group? do not know what you are talking about.

edit:
I was once told that ATI cards gave you more GPU power per $$$ than CUDA cards did. So I was wondering about how each card stacks up to the others. I use to have a chart that ranked some of the cards from fall of 2009. I cannot find it any more, but the 5000 series were not out then either. So it would not have been on the charts. I want some to see some chart that compares the work done by each card so you can see how each one does and then add the current costs to the graph for each card that is currently available for purchase. That way people who want to get into GPU processing will know that this $50 card does more work than this $75 card, so they do not spend more money than they need to.

[trigggl]

I have the latest driver from the Ubuntu 10.04 repository. My MoB graphics was nVidia so it is using the same drivers. As for CUDA drivers, is there a different one than the one in the repository? I have the latest one installed that I can install with the repository.

The BOINC system states "No Usable GPU found" instead of "no GPU found" when I did not have the 9500 installed.

driver - 195.36.24
memory - 1024 MB
CUDA cores - 32

I run Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit on a quad core AMD Phenom 9650 @ 2.30 GHz.

Video Group? do not know what you are talking about.

edit:
I was once told that ATI cards gave you more GPU power per $$$ than CUDA cards did. So I was wondering about how each card stacks up to the others. I use to have a chart that ranked some of the cards from fall of 2009. I cannot find it any more, but the 5000 series were not out then either. So it would not have been on the charts. I want some to see some chart that compares the work done by each card so you can see how each one does and then add the current costs to the graph for each card that is currently available for purchase. That way people who want to get into GPU processing will know that this $50 card does more work than this $75 card, so they do not spend more money than they need to.

In the file /etc/groups there will be a line 'video'. Make sure 'boinc' is on that line.

[krackedpress]

In the file /etc/groups there will be a line 'video'. Make sure 'boinc' is on that line.

boinc:x:123:
is shown in that file, but NO video line

below is the message at the start up of BIONC.
Wed 04 Jan 2012 03:43:07 PM EST No usable GPUs found

[Slicker]

boinc:x:123:
is shown in that file, but NO video line

below is the message at the start up of BIONC.
Wed 04 Jan 2012 03:43:07 PM EST No usable GPUs found

Then I guess you should just uninstall them and ship them to me as they would sure be useable in my computers! :)

If I recall, for Linux, the CUDA SDK also has to be installed in addition to the drivers as the CUDA runtime was not included. That may have changed though. If not, there is a specific order in which the CUDA SDK and driver need to be installed. I don't recall which comes first, but you should be OK to start with the driver and then install the SDK. If BOINC doesn't recognize the GPU as usable, then reinstall the driver.

FYI, I'm not a Linux guru. Rather, I know just enough to be very, very dangerous.

[Fire$torm]

boinc:x:123:
is shown in that file, but NO video line

below is the message at the start up of BIONC.
Wed 04 Jan 2012 03:43:07 PM EST No usable GPUs found


Then I guess you should just uninstall them and ship them to me as they would sure be useable in my computers! :)

If I recall, for Linux, the CUDA SDK also has to be installed in addition to the drivers as the CUDA runtime was not included. That may have changed though. If not, there is a specific order in which the CUDA SDK and driver need to be installed. I don't recall which comes first, but you should be OK to start with the driver and then install the SDK. If BOINC doesn't recognize the GPU as usable, then reinstall the driver.

FYI, I'm not a Linux guru. Rather, I know just enough to be very, very dangerous.

@KP: The problem is there is no easy way to get Ubuntu or any Linux OS to crunch with a GPU. The easiest way to use a GPU is with Windows. If you are dead set on using Ubuntu you will need to do a lot of searching on the Ubuntu forums. Trigggl might have info that may help you. Send him a PM but note that even with the info it will still be a pain to get working. I would strongly suggest that you use Windows instead. Maybe post a request for a license key for WinXP Pro (Not WinXP Home). If your CPU supports 64 bit, ie. EMT64 then find/request a key for x64. You can use a utility called CPU-Z (Main page link (http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html)) (Direct download link (http://www.cpuid.com/downloads/cpu-z/1.59-setup-en.exe))to find out what your CPU supports. If someone can get you a key I can give a link to download the XP installer image that you can burn to CD-ROM.