Nvidia GPU usage
Skip Guenter
sguenter at austin.rr.com
Wed Nov 25 17:23:04 UTC 2009
WARNING: The following contains some OPINIONS.
Mike,
I am fairly certain I'd posted the
cd /etc/rc2.d
sudo mv -v S20boinc-client S32boinc-client
issue here a couple months ago but at the time there were concerns about
bringing GPU support into the mainstream Debian/Ubuntu boinc support due
to the proprietary drivers / libs involved.
I don't know where that stands today.
However this change of S20 to S32 does seem to resolve the startup
problem in Ubuntu/Xubuntu about 96% of the time. Occasionally, for
reasons unknown, boinc-client still gets started before the xorg.conf
has finished processing/glx fully loaded and you'll get the "GPU
missing" status on the WU. A restart will resolve
or
inserting a "sleep 2" into the start() function will also resolve. I'm
sure there's a better way but not one my limited knowledge of
Linux/Ubuntu/Bash/RunLevels can conjure up today. I'd really like some
feedback from this list on a better way to delay the client starting
just a wee bit longer than just the S20 to S32 change. Maybe something
to test if the glx module is loaded and awake? Or another runlevel?
Example of inserted "sleep" along with a nvclock command (this
particular card requires forcing auto fan control on to not overheat)
inserted into /etc/init.d/boinc-client:
start()
{
log_begin_msg "Starting $DESC: $NAME"
if is_running; then
log_progress_msg "already running"
else
nvclock -F auto -f
sleep 1
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --pidfile $PIDFILE \
--make-pidfile --user $BOINC_USER --chuid $BOINC_USER \
--chdir $BOINC_DIR --exec $BOINC_CLIENT -- $BOINC_OPTS
Also the user "boinc" in video group thing does not seem to occur in my
Ubuntu (& Xubuntu) environments. I suspect this to be something with
the Berkeley install.
My 'method' of upgrading has been to install from the Deb/Ubuntu
repositories when adding a vid card to a machine (both the 18x.xx driver
and boinc) and then:
1) Run the Nvidia script from /home/user (telling it to NOT update
xorg.conf if it's an upgrade of driver) with sudo sh NVIDIA[TAB]
2) Run the Berkely scripts from /home/user which will
create /home/user/BOINC (sudo sh boinc_[TAB])
3) cd to the /home/user/BOINC directory and sudo mv -v boinc /usr/bin/
(repeat for boincmgr and boinccmd)
4) Move libcudart if first time or only if it actually changed from
prior driver version (not so often)
5) Make sure /usr/bin/boinc* are owned by root and executable. Adjust
as needed with chown root: and chmod a+x
6) Clean-up from /home/user with sudo rm -Rv BOINC and sudo rm -v
boinc_[TAB]
This will get ya the latest greatest nvidia drivers (190.42) + whatever
version of boinc ya want (6.10.17 right now) and still allow usage of
all the (much preferred by me) Debian/Ubuntu scripts and naming.
Retains full functionality of /etc/init.d/boinc-client restart|status|
stop|start unlike the Berkeley scripts.
Does not require any mucking about with "boinc" in the video group.
Skip
On Wed, 2009-11-25 at 12:05 +0000,
pkg-boinc-devel-request at lists.alioth.debian.org wrote:
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:43:27 +0200
> From: Mika Rastas <mika.rastas at gmail.com>
> Subject: Bug#557871: [boinc-client] Isn't able to use suitable Nvidia
> GPU for calculations
> To: submit at bugs.debian.org
> Message-ID: <1259099007.10177.16.camel at BirdFarm.Kotiverkko>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Package: boinc-client
> Version: 6.10.17+dfsg-1
> Severity: normal
>
> --- Please enter the report below this line. ---
>
> I started working on using the GPU for boinc projects and found out that
> it didn't work. After some searching I found out that it is because the
> client is getting loaded too early. Client only checks for suitable GPUs
> when it starts. Then I tried to restart it and found out that the user
> boinc needs to be in group video atleast for nvidia cuda to work.
>
> This thread speaks of the same problem.
> http://www.gpugrid.net/forum_thread.php?id=1384&nowrap=true#12852
>
> Now it crunches numbers just nicely as I've changed the startup scripts
> links to S32boinc-client ordering them later than the nvidia driver.
>
>
> --- System information. ---
> Architecture: amd64
> Kernel: Linux 2.6.31-1-amd64
>
> Debian Release: squeeze/sid
> 500 unstable http.us.debian.org
> 500 unstable ftp.sunet.se
> 500 unstable ftp.funet.fi
> 500 unstable ftp.fi.debian.org
> 500 testing http.us.debian.org
> 500 testing ftp.fi.debian.org
>
> --- Package information. ---
> Depends (Version) | Installed
> =================================-+-==============
> libc6 (>= 2.2.5) | 2.10.2-1
> libcurl3 (>= 7.16.2-1) | 7.19.7-1
> libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1) | 1:4.4.2-3
> libssl0.9.8 (>= 0.9.8f-5) | 0.9.8k-6
> libstdc++6 (>= 4.1.1) | 4.4.2-3
> zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4) | 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-15
> debconf (>= 0.5) | 1.5.28
> OR debconf-2.0 |
> python (>= 2.3) | 2.5.4-2
> adduser | 3.111
> lsb-base (>= 3.0-6) | 3.2-23
> ca-certificates | 20090814
>
>
> Recommends (Version) | Installed
> =========================-+-===========
> schedtool | 1.3.0-1
>
>
> Suggests (Version) | Installed
> =============================-+-===========
> boinc-app-seti |
> boinc-manager | 6.10.17+dfsg-1
> OR kboincspy |
>
>
>
> --- Output from package bug script ---
> -- Contents of /etc/default/boinc-client:
> # This file is /etc/default/boinc-client, it is a configuration file for the
> # /etc/init.d/boinc-client init script.
>
> # Set this to 1 to enable and to 0 to disable the init script.
> ENABLED="1"
>
> # Set this to 1 to enable advanced scheduling of the BOINC core client and
> # all its sub-processes (reduces the impact of BOINC on the system's
> # performance).
> SCHEDULE="1"
>
> # The BOINC core client will be started with the permissions of this user.
> BOINC_USER="boinc"
>
> # This is the data directory of the BOINC core client.
> BOINC_DIR="/var/lib/boinc-client"
>
> # This is the location of the BOINC core client, that the init script uses.
> # If you do not want to use the client program provided by the boinc-client
> # package, you can specify here an alternative client program.
> #BOINC_CLIENT="/usr/local/bin/boinc"
> BOINC_CLIENT="/usr/bin/boinc"
>
> # Here you can specify additional options to pass to the BOINC core client.
> # Type 'boinc --help' or 'man boinc' for a full summary of allowed options.
> #BOINC_OPTS="--allow_remote_gui_rpc"
> BOINC_OPTS=""
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:08:04 +0300
> From: Aristarch Alekseevich <aristarchalekseevich at l3377l.com>
> Subject: ??o ?a?o? ?????a, ???? ??? ?? ???? ???
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