Hi,

I am trying to connect my computer to the project yet again after some time, but as I am trying to "attach to project" using the BOINC interface, I am greeted by a familiar message "This project may not have work for your type of computer. Do you want to add it anyway? -> yes/no".

The last time I saw this was in early 2013, and I then chose "yes". After some time I was wondering why I hadn't received any work units, so I checked the event log. I unfortunately do not remember the exact message from the server, but it said something like some specific model (hadcm3n?) not being available for AMD64 Linux. After that I decided to change to other projects, none of which had the same kind of compatibility issues.

This message might be related to the Debian OS or the 3.2.0-amd64 kernel I am using, because on both occations I have seen this message I've used the Debian version 6 or 7. In December 2013 I decided to change my operating system to Ubuntu 12.04LTS. When attaching to CPDN no such messages showed up (3.8.0-generic kernel) and I was able to get WUs.

Ubuntu was not quite compatible with my system, so in late December I decided to switch back to Debian 7.3 (the previous Debian version was 6) and as said the message showed up again. I do not know weather I would receive WUs or not, but I am unwilling to find out before I get to the roots of what this incompatibility with the project might be caused of. I have searched all over the forums, and the closest thing I have had for more detailed system requirements is the FAQ's too unspecific "Recommended system requirements" page. Is there any page which might shed some more light on the issue?

Currently I am running Cosmology@home and the exact computer I am trying to connect is the 204867 (http://www.cosmologyathome.org/show_host_detail.php?hostid=204867) with BOINC version 7.0.27. It's predecessors held the project's number one host position for one and a half years through 2011 and 2012, so I am eager to connect this quite new rig that has double the horsepower.

However, I have been disappointed by the lack of work that the project has. Back in 2011 there were quite a few similar servers running Linux operating systems and holding the leading positions, but they have all gone now to another projects as can be seen from the "Top Computers" page. By seeming that you do not support the AMD and Linux 64-bit combination you are loosing hundreds of gigaflops if not teraflops worth of computing power, which I think you are currently lacking. The All project stats (http://www.allprojectstats.com/po.php?projekt=21) shows you having only 27 TFlops of computational power.

I have always considered CPDN as my main project so I would love to come back. I hope I will again see the day when CPDN can feed in new packages at the same pace as computed results are returned.

Looking forward to one day again compute to solve the greatest problem the mankind has ever faced!

Sincerely,
Juho Iipponen, BOINC@Finland

I don't know why you're getting that message. There's no discrimination against AMD processors, or 64 bit Linux, as long as the necessary 32 libraries are installed. (Although your computer DOES have to present itself as one of the standard types of Linux, and not call itself something else, e.g. a Sun computer.) Which yours isn't.

You claim to have 48 processors, but the 6344 chip has 6/12.
Does this mean that the board has 4 chips, with each having hyper threading (or the AMD equivalent)? I don't know if this has any bearing on the message.

As for work here, there hasn't been any for a long while, for reasons known only to the researchers who occasionally request that work be done for them.
The last big batch was early December, but the 20,000+ computers waiting for work grabbed that lot very quickly.

There is no problem with AMD computers, whether they use Windows or Linux.

All the CPDN models are 32 bit. Could this be the problem? Does the following BOINC reference page help?

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Installing_on_Linux

Please also see the following post by Geophi about 32 and 64 bit:

http://climateapps2.oerc.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_thread.php?id=6746#38077

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Cpdn news

Hmm, 48 processors would see my place in the rankings rise if they were all in use! - Along with my electricity bill and probably the bill from my ISP!

Thank you for the prompt responses, an active community has always been a big plus for CPDN!

Thanks for the tip, but all the packages mentioned on the "64-bit considerations" page in the BOINC wiki were installed (manually). It might have indeed been that I hadn't installed the ia32-libs package on the Debian 6 system I used when I first got the message, but now it is. Despite of that the message is still showing up as I am trying to attach, but I now decided to press "yes" (connect anyway) and see what happens.

CPDN has the greatest resource share of the projects now, so I should get WUs when they are released. I'll be frequently checking the the event log to see if there are any error messages from the project. I will report back to this thread weather there are problems or not.

On AMD 6300 series processors each core has their own floating point and integer units and L1 cache, so all the cores are real in a sense that they are not virtual (1 core = 1 threads, not two, as Intel has). The motherboard has four 12 core processors, so it has 48 cores in total. I have not changed the motherboard since 2011, when the computer got packages at the same rate as they were returned, so it seems unlikely that had caused the issue.

Now that your computer is visible, I can see the problem.
It's because your computer calls itself 3.2.0-4-amd64.
amd64 is NOT a brand of Linux, it's a brand of processor.

It needs to call itself something like 3.2.0-4-generic, the way that your other computer does.

Some other correct labels are;
fc19.x86_64
gentoo
el6.x86_64

And so on.

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Backups: Here

What name/OS we see when looking at a computer ID is often determined by a distribution naming convention, so having an AMD64 at the end of the kernel name/OS shouldn't be a problem. If you saved and moved over the BOINC folder from the old installation, you can do a

sudo ldd hadcm...

on each of the executables in the /projects/climateprediction.net folder and see if there are any unsatisfied dependencies.

I had the same error you have on Fedora 19 x86_64 when I forgot to install all the 32bit compatibility libraries. It may be you followed the instructions in the boinc FAQ on the subject, but there is still some other compatibility library you need to install.

It's a shame that a BOINC installation can be so complicated on some Linux distributions, but such is the nature of all the different distributions and 32bit app compatibility. Good luck.

YES!

As geophi said, I still didn't have all of the 32-bit compatibility libraries installed. I did not copy the BOINC folder from the Ubuntu 12.04 installation so I had no executables to ldd, but I decided to install the Boinc manager to my small Ubuntu 13.10 box and I thought I could perhaps copy those executables to the Debian system and try them there. Doing so I had to install again the 32-bit libraries on Ubuntu 64-bit, but now the ia32-libs package posed a difficulty: package manager said it was not available, but that the 32z1, 32ncurses5 and 32bz2-1.0 libraries needed to be installed to provide the same functionality:

sudo apt-get install lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0 libstdc++6 libstdc++5 freeglut3

and that did the trick on Ubuntu 13.10. I tried the same command on the Debian 7.3 computer, restarted the boinc-client, and connected to the CPDN without complaints. Now I should get WUs again.

The information about the required 32-bit libraries on the BOINC wiki page seems deprecated. Maybe someone could update it with the information that ia32-libs package doesn't exist anymore as of Ubuntu 13.10 and that the aforementioned libraries are to replace it.

Thank you all again for your quick and helpful responses!

-Juho Iipponen

You mean on the following page in the Ubuntu section at the bottom?

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Installing_on_Linux

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Cpdn news

In my long time running 64-bit BOINC on linux - getting all the right 32-bit libraries for CPDN has been an ongoing problem.
How to get them all installed on a particular distro has been an "interesting" problem. Either it works, or use --

The advice to do "ldd" on all the executable files in the project/<whatever>/* folder has always worked for me. But sometimes it has been a major pain to find and install all those 32-bit libs.

Confusing enough that I've never dared to write a "how to get the 32-bit libs" on a "distro" system.

Manually checking every executable file in ../projec --

Only way to go

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And to think that there are those out there who wonder why people are ready to pay for Windows when they could get Linux for free.

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Yes, that exact page and this one http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Installing_BOINC#64_Bit_Considerations, because they advise to install the ia32-libs package, which is no longer in repositories since 13.10. When attempting apt-get install ia32-libs the APT says that those three libraries mentioned in my previous post replace it.

This is just the new Ubuntu fix since 13.10, using ldd on the executables is probably a better choice if you have them. The problem was that CPDN refused to even send me those executables in the first place, because it knew my computer was not able to run them.

I do not know weather the solution would work on debian 7, per se, as before installing those three libraries I first enabled the i386 architecture (dpkg --add-architecture i386 && apt-get update) and then installed the ia32-libs package.

I am using a 32-bit Linux OS and CPDN runs OK, as do SETI@home, Einstein@home, Albert@home and LHC@home, plus Test4Theory@home, which requires a Virtual Box installation, always 32-bit. Instead. QMC@home insists in sending me a 64-bit app, which crashes immediately. I have tried to contact the Herr Professor who is the chief scientist (they have no message boards) and received no answer.
Tullio
Edit. My CPU is a 64-bit AMD Opteron 1210, this is probably why QMC sends me a 64-bit app.

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And to think that there are those out there who wonder why people are ready to pay for Windows when they could get Linux for free.

It was quite a relief when I replaced my openSUSE installation with Windows 7. I love the idea of open source & linux in theory, but it can be really user-unfriendly at times. Hopefully this will improve in the years to come (particularly since both Android and the new steam box use it).

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@Eirik Redd Yes and then starting the manager from the command line to find out what is still missing and stopping the graphics from working!

That said, my own computers have been defenestrated for the whole of this century. I have reached the point where troubleshooting friends M$ computers is making me look things up every time.

The problem with Linux is that every distribution is different from the others, there is not a Standard Linux distro. For example, SuSE does not include the latest BOINC client in its distro, and this forces me to use 6.10.58. But this allows me to use the latest 4.3.6 Virtual Box release in Test4Theoy@home, while Window users are limited to 4.2.16. You pays your money and you takes your choice.
Tullio

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A similar problem of "no tasks" when using this OS is being experienced on the QCN project.
The thread is here.

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Backups: Here

Now my computer 1310226 has received its first CPDN tasks, and they seem to be running great. The solution mentioned in the previous posts of mine indeed worked.

Thank you all for your great assistance! Now I'm sure I can always rely on the community in case of any problems.
-Juho

I'm posting to this thread as it comes up near the top of the google search when trying to fix this problem.

On recent Debian and Ubuntu you must use multiarch to allow libraries for multiple architectures to be installed simultaneously, and then install a few i386 libraries which the CPDN binaries rely on:

dpkg --add-architecture i386
apt-get update
apt-get install libstdc++5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 freeglut3:i386

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Hello Tim

You can find out what's missing by looking at the page of failed models, going down to Stderr, and clicking on the plus symbol to expand the list.

The problem that I found, was that the lib that I wanted was installed, and then removed again during the clean up process, as the needed file is an older version for compatibility.

I got a copy from a 32 bit OS, and transferred it via a memory stick.