KWSN Orbiting Fortress

Adam Alexander · Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 5:06 pm Post subject: Ubuntu 8.04 Very Slow

Last night I switched a Dell XPS 1330 from Vista to Ubuntu 8.04 64bit. Under windows it could crunch SHA work units in <40 minutes. I let it run overnight with Ubuntu and was surprised to see that the time went to about 1:40 minutes per work unit. On top of that, I got a compute error for every work unit of Intelligence Realm. Any thoughts on what might be causing this?
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Yankton · Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 6:04 pm Post subject:

I am playing with ubuntu and it does sha units slower in comparison to an identical box running gentoo. Ubuntu uses a very generic kernel, with lots of extra software loaded. Kind of a pain. Not sure about intelligence realm though. Did you look on their site at the WUs in question and see what error they gave?
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Adam Alexander · Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 6:52 pm Post subject:

Yankton · Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 7:11 pm Post subject:

I would recommend Fedora. Very nice clean distro. I am biased though, I'm not big on micro$oft.
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Adam Alexander · Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 7:29 pm Post subject:

Mildew · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:49 am Post subject:

I don't think you'd get a 150% increase in shrubbing time per WU just because the kernel is less optimized. A few percent maybe, but not that much.

Are you also running the 64-bit version of Windows, or the 32-bit?

There could be a difference in WU size for different architectures. Was it only the time per WU that went up, or did you also get a lower RAC?

I suppose it could be a case of lazy programming, e.g. perhaps they haven't botherd with SSE or other optimizations on the Linux client, but then it wouldn't matter which distro you run.

ohiomike · Prince Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 858 Location: Sometimes

Ubuntu 8.04 comes with the powernowd (the power/speed governor) set to "power saving" and since Boinc does not show up a a "foreground" task the CPU goes to 1/2 speed. Just set powernowd to "Performance".
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Adam Alexander · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:20 am Post subject:

Adam Alexander · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:23 am Post subject:

Yankton · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:27 pm Post subject:

I forgot about the powernowd. It is one of the first things I uninstalled. Thing is though, it's only sha-1 (out of the projects I shrub for now) that has a unusually high completion time on this box. Other projects end up with equal or very close shrub times. Confused

Fedora 9 didn't like my box, now that 10 is out I'll have to take a day and sit down to install it.
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Adam Alexander · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:45 pm Post subject:

Yankton · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 2:07 pm Post subject:

I'm not sure. One of my gentoo systems is on an identical box and crucnhes sha in about 60% of the time the ubuntu box does. Both running 64 bit editions. If Fedora 10 doesn't like this box either I'll have to sit down and go all gentoo again.
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Adam Alexander · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 2:19 pm Post subject:

ohiomike · Prince Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 858 Location: Sometimes

Yankton · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 9:42 pm Post subject:

I see. Gentoo it is. If you don't install it intentionally, it doesn't run #ni-1

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Adam Alexander · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:50 pm Post subject:

shoob · Baron Joined: 05 Mar 2009 Posts: 143

Yankton · Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:03 pm Post subject:

If you're willing to learn linux and take the time to compile your OS I strongly suggest Gentoo, my gentoo boxes shrub like mad!
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shoob · Baron Joined: 05 Mar 2009 Posts: 143

I've heard of Gentoo but not as familiar with it. I noticed there are Live and install CDs available. Does that mean I'd still need to manually compile the OS? Also, how difficult is it to get boinc-client and boinccmd running? Will I need to download the source and compile it on the box?

Sorry for all the questions. It's been YEARS since I've dug really deep into *nix.

nu!
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Yankton · Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 7:32 pm Post subject:

Yes, you'd still need to compile everything for your system, the CD just gets the source code for a lot of the basic stuff right in front of you, but the current live CD is old enough that you would have a lot of downloading to do when you did the first update.

Boinc is not difficult to run and compile, or you have the option of downloading the binaries from the boinc site if you want. Boinc itself doesn't need to be superfast as it doesn't do much, but if your OS is streamlined everything will be faster. Be prepared to sit for quite a while working if you go this route though. It's best if you have a second computer with the install documents sitting in front of you and can research any blocks you come across. First time you do it, you will learn a LOT.

And if you only have dial up you may want to skip it for now. I've been playing with Ubuntu recently and I'm not overly happy with it, installs way too much junk.

If you have a 32 bit processor, Arch linux is a lovely low-calorie choice.

If you have an ancient computer, Vector linux may be the one for you.

Fedora is usually the middle ground but their new live dvd also has a lot of junk.

Debian is the most solid OS on the planet, if you don't care if you have the latest bling but want safe and secure, this is an excellent choice.

If it's just gonna shrub and nothing else, check out damn small linux if you don't want to mess with gentoo.

You have many choices, it really depends on how much effort you want to put into customizing it and what you want the end product to do.

Shrubbing for PGGBs,

Yankton
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