(solution found) transitioning Boinc from APt to Flatpak version on Ubuntu 22 LTS without project data loss
12 Mar 2024 13:14:43 UTC
Topic 230876
(moderation:
Hi there,
Windows has gotten ever more bloated so I decided to switch to Ubuntu Linux (yes I know in Linux terms it is still bloated)
I have a Thinkpad r480 20RK series with Radeon and Intel graphics
This is the first time I have installed Ubuntu and the APT version of BOINC seems to be a test version 7.18 from 2020. It is really unstable, as it suggests, and it froze the manager and my computer, forcing some tasks to be aborted due to not starting by deadline. It somehow only recognized only the Intel GPU as I could tell from the event log.
After a lot of searching I came across the Flatpak version 7.22 which seems more stable and newer. On my first install, I did not purge the apt version and the flatpak version of manager 7.22 somehow recognized the apt client version of 7.18. I deleted both versions but kept the data as the apt uninstaller suggests.
Now the manager and client are both working, however, it does not recognize the data from the old version and prompts me to reattach projects and redownload all the files. I do not want to waste bandwidth on both sides redownloading the data.
I did try to search for directories but it seemed that I could only find the directories for the apt version. In system monitor it only lists the files attached but not where the app itself is. If I recall correctly, flatpak should not be a whole package like appimage files so it should have a directory too.
Boinc manager also recognizes the GPU which driver I have installed with amdgpu, however, the intel opencl I installed with APT was not recognised this time.
I could go on in more detail but I do not want to waste time on both sides. Long story short:
How do I get Boinc to recognize the intel GPU?
How do I get Flatpak Boinc to recognize the files from the older APT version?
Thank you very much for your time.
Snowball101 wrote: Hi
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I have a copy of my boinc projects .xml files on a usb disk and just copy it into the Boinc folder when I install Linux of Windows on a pc, it takes a while of course to contact all the projects but it's all automatic.
Is this your laptop?
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Is this your laptop? https://einsteinathome.org/host/13168944
8Gb of RAM may be too little if the video cards share it with the OS and don't have dedicated video RAM.
The 'Windows' listing shows the Radeon 540 with 2Gb. I just don't know if that is dedicated. I think you have to edit a file to get more than one video card running at once. Try BOINC website?
I am not sure where the BOINC data directory is on Linux, sorry. Have you taken a look at what users are listed on Linux? Could it be under a 'BOINC' user?
Try following info from BOINC website. https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/BOINC_Data_directory
mikey wrote: I have a
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I understand your logic, but asking a Boinc newbie to create such xml file and get Boinc to recognize it is equivalent to getting a newbie install Alpine/Arch Linux and expect them to get everything working immediately
i.e. I am a noob and that short sentence is hard for me to implement sorry
Jonathan wrote: Is this your
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Yes it is.
I am very aware that these cards may not be very good, but hey, they work. Task manager tells me that the intel one has 4GB shared and the Radeon one has 2GB dedicated and 4GB shared. I am not sure if that is part of the 8GB memory I already have or if it is separate though.
I have seen that page. Unfortunately the Boinc wiki may be slightly outdated since it directed me to use APT to get Boinc for Ubuntu which is the 7.18 version. That should be the APT version directory if I am correct. I am looking for the flatpak version directory which I assume is different, otherwise I think flatpak Boinc should have already recognized the files downloaded.
I have checked again and it seems that there is a bug with the flatpak version as it froze and ate 6GB of memory and 12% CPU when I entered my E@H username and password and froze my computer which forced me to power it off the bad way. I guess I cannot add projects this way to manager and am stuck in this situation?
You could try the new alpha
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You could try the new alpha release by the BOINC developer.
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/linux/alpha/jammy/pool/main/b/boinc-client/boinc-client_7.24.3-327_amd64.deb
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/linux/alpha/jammy/pool/main/b/boinc-manager/boinc-manager_7.24.3-327_amd64.deb
You would just install them normally with dpkg -i
The locations would be the normal Linux locations of /var/lib/boinc-client for the directories and the binaries in /usr/bin
Keith Myers wrote: You could
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Thanks for the help (and sorry for being picky) but I really just want to get a stable Boinc client and manager working on tasks instead of using 2 days trying to find and fix problems with unready packages.
I will monitor the Boinc progress of that package and see if anything stable comes out.
Meanwhile I will try searching for the flatpak data directory.
By the way, may I ask where
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By the way, may I ask where you got your Boinc manager and client from?
Update: Problem solved!I
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Update: Problem solved!
I found the data directory for the Flatpak version of Boinc.
In Ubuntu 22 LTS it is located at home/<username>/.var/app/edu.berkeley.boinc/
I copied the config files from the APT install but got an error stating that there is a gui rpc auth error.
in the directory I found files that were described as broken by nautilus, so I tried my luck and removed them. With a reinstall of Boinc and a restart of the computer the manager somehow solved the problem itself... kudos to the developers! I then hit update for all projects to get the latest configs etc.
I now have all my projects set up and ready. Thanks for the help!
Edit: celebrated too soon (XD) GPU drivers still not all recognized and no GPU tasks coming in, starting new thread...
Snowball101 wrote:By the
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My team (GPUUG) builds them ourselves with special privileges.
Happy you figured the Flatpak installation out. I like that it is in /home for easy user access.
We build our clients and Manager with that capability. It is based on the original Berkeley installer configuration.
Are your clients available to
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Are your clients available to the public? Are they stable in your opinion?
I am aware that Boinc should be open-source software, so compiling from scratch should not be that hard?
Unfortunately I lack such skills.