It appears BOINC w/ CUDA requires X to be running first (revised).

[Skip Guenter]

Oh yes Steffen, 

Without even testing (yet) I'm sure you are right.  I'm guessing it's
the entries that get added to /etc/X11/xorg.conf when you install the
restricted driver. 

It was my error in using 'gdm' like it was the x-session.  It's still a
fuzzy line for me.

I suspect it's this entry in xorg.conf that needs to 'happen' before the
boinc-client starts:

Section "Module"
	Load	"glx"
EndSection

Thanx for clarifying this for me.

After the GDM vs KDM swap, is the second part of what you are suggesting
I test to uninstall the Debian v180.11 driver and install the one from
the Nvidia site?

I'll have to re-read Nvidia's directions for Linux installing but I
think there is a point where they make the same type of changes to
xorg.conf but let me go read that again first.

Skip

On Mon, 2009-07-20 at 11:15 +0200, Steffen Moeller wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> the CUDA part of the BOINC upstream code was removed for license issues.
> I could imagine that this makes a difference of some sort with respect
> to initialisation, but having not looked at it I am only guessing here.
> 
> I am happy to hear that CUDA works with Debian/Ubuntu BOINC, actually :)
> 
> So, the hunch I have is that the commercial nvidia driver is somehow
> invoked and provides the underlying CUDA functionality which BOINC then
> profits from. You could test this by substituting the GDM with KDM
> (which would mean that the desktop manager does not make a difference
> but the initialisation of  X does) and the official nvidia driver with
> the free one that ships with Debian.
> 
> And ... should my hunch be correct, I don't know what this actually
> means for our BOINC packages. Comments by the others will tell :)
> 
> Best,
> 
> Steffen
> 
> Skip Guenter wrote:
> > Hey ya'll,
> >
> > First a HUGE THANX for all the good stuff ya'll do!
> >
> > On to my problem...
> >
> > I recently installed an 8800GT card into each of two different machines.
> > One my normal desktop (Ubuntu v8.10 64b) and another into a headless,
> > diskless number cruncher (Dotsch/UX / Ubuntu v8.10).  There was little
> > problem with Intrepid machine as I only had to create a link
> > in /var/lib/boinc-client to libcudart.so to resolve an error message.
> >
> > The install on the Dotsch/UX machine was another thing.  I'm trying to
> > work with the author of that distro on what I believe the problems are
> > when the machine is running off of a served up NFS.  
> >
> > Anyway, to get around this I installed a HDD back into that machine and
> > installed Jaunty on it (v9.04, 64b).  All went well with the same link
> > needing to be added into /var/lib/boinc-client.  
> >
> > On BOTH machines I installed v6.4.5 deb package from 'getdeb' Intrepid
> > 64b.
> >
> > On the 2nd (normally headless) machine I had the gdm NOT starting
> > automatically via a rename of the "S30gdm" in rc2.d to "s30gdm". 
> >
> > I then noticed that BOINC was throwing errors saying "missing CUDA
> > device".  I started the gdm back up and then restarted boinc-client.
> > This resolved the error.  I then reset the gdm to auto start and
> > rebooted the machine to make sure it would be OK on a restart.  It was
> > not.  I again had the missing CUDA device message.  
> >
> > I looked at /etc/rc2.d and it appears to me that boinc-client is started
> > at S20 and gdm is started at S30.  IF (that's a BIG IF) I understand
> > correctly that means that boinc-client is already running by the time
> > xsession/gdm is started.  I think this is a problem because I believe
> > the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf contains things needed by the nvidia device
> > driver which in turn is needed by BOINC to recognize the CUDA card.
> >
> > Is there a simple rename that I could do to resolve this locally?
> > Something along the lines of:
> >
> > sudo mv /etc/rc2.d/S20boinc-client /etc/rc2.d/S32boinc-client
> >
> > I'm afraid there may be something else that would have to match an
> > action like the above on another file but I don't know what it would be.
> >
> > I don't know how to report this as an official problem but still would
> > appreciate anybody that could help with a local fix.  
> >
> > If somebody wants to point me to something on how to report the bug I'll
> > try to fill out the forms. 
> >
> > Thanx in advance, Skip
> > República de Tejas, Centro
> >
> >
> > --
> > pkg-boinc-devel mailing list
> > pkg-boinc-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org
> > http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-boinc-devel
>