# Best OS for WCG



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 2, 2014)

Ok, so I have my 2nd 3930k all assembled and in working condition. Only problem is I nuked my install of windows in the process (my guess, a lot of hard shut downs and reboots while diagnosing a hardware issue, turns out I had a stick of RAM die). So I'm forced to do a reformat and OS install for the 2nd 3930k system. So my question is which OS should I use? I have a copy of 7 Pro 64 bit available(tried and true OS I am very used to). I can buy a copy of 8.1 Pro 64 bit for about $40 though school(I really do not like the GUI of 8 or 8.1). Or I can try out a Linux OS for the first time(I've never used Linux before, probably should). So what do you think? What OS will yeild the best results as far as running on a WCG cruncher? The computer will pretty much only be used for crunching, unless something happens with my other 3930k system. The system will be comprised of the following parts-

CPU- i7 3930k @ 4.3ghz under a Deep Cool Lucifer heatsink
MB- ASUS P9X79 Deluxe
RAM- 4 (1*4gb) Corsair Vengeance Blue DDR3 1600
GPU- ASUS DirectCU HD7770
PSU- Corsair TX850 (overkill I know, but it's all I have right now)
HD- Seagate 7200.12 500GB 16mb cache


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 2, 2014)

please ignore my vote, I only cast a vote so that I can see the results without having to click the "see results" tab


----------



## brandonwh64 (Sep 2, 2014)

I have heard some people say linux is better than windows but this was before windows 8.1 so I would have to go to the experts on that one. If this machine is a cruncher ONLY then I would say do a free version of linux 64bit


----------



## Norton (Sep 2, 2014)

For a dedicated crunching rig I would go with Linux (Ubuntu or Mint). If you are going for a mixed use rig (crunching/folding) then go with 7 or 8.1.

You should see at least 30% more ppd with Ubuntu


----------



## thebluebumblebee (Sep 2, 2014)

If you're going to try Linux, try Mint.  It's meant for those who are used to the Windows interface.  That's not to say that Ubuntu is hard to understand, it's just different.  I'm making the assumption that there is no difference in performance between the different versions of Linux.
@Norton , as usual, hit the nail on the head in the previous post.  At this time, you can not Fold under Linux with an AMD GPU (okay, it's possible, but it's really hard), but you can with a Nvidia GPU. (realatively easy)
I'm voting for Linux, but I have to say that I have no knowledge when it comes to Windows 8/8.1.


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 2, 2014)

I installed Ubuntu


----------



## TRWOV (Sep 2, 2014)

Go with Linux for pure CPU, Windows for GPU but there is no GPU work currently so...


----------



## Norton (Sep 2, 2014)

BarbaricSoul said:


> I installed Ubuntu



Which version? If 12.04 LTS I can assist with the "report results immediately" adjustment to the cc_config file. I'm not sure if it's the same process for the other versions?

Also, *psensor *works ok as a general temperature monitor


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 2, 2014)

how in the hell do I run a program in ubuntu? Everytime I double click the icon to install WCG, ubuntu opens it with gedit. I don't want to edit the program, I want to run it. I'm installed ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS


----------



## thebluebumblebee (Sep 2, 2014)

I, ah, told you so.
I did the same thing.  You have to go into the software manager and install it from there.


----------



## Nordic (Sep 2, 2014)

Ubuntu installs everything through the software manager or alternatively you could use the terminal. The software manager is really easy in that you just search for boinc and click install. The terminal will teach you how to use linux in more of a long term sense, and it is kind of cool. I think @Vinska was writing a nice guide for this.

psensor and conky are your friends.


----------



## ThE_MaD_ShOt (Sep 2, 2014)

Yes got to the software manager and search for boinc. Install it it then it runs and is basically the same as the windows version.


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 2, 2014)

software manager? where do I find that at? so far, I am very far from being impressed with ubuntu


----------



## thebluebumblebee (Sep 2, 2014)

Maybe its called application manager?  Large icons on the left side of the screen.


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 2, 2014)

Yeah, I tried that, it opened the file with gedit








Hell with it, I'm going back to 7


----------



## Norton (Sep 2, 2014)

BarbaricSoul said:


> Yeah, I tried that, it opened the file with gedit
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Stick with it a bit longer- it's worth it! Better output and good stability await your efforts 

EDIT- BOINC Manager 7.0.27 is available in the "Ubuntu Software Center" (in the LH menu) it runs fine on all of my Linux rigs


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 2, 2014)

bee has offered to help me out on the phone, so I'll try it out with his help. Just got to get some charge on the phone before calling.


----------



## Norton (Sep 2, 2014)

BarbaricSoul said:


> bee has offered to help me out on the phone, so I'll try it out with his help. Just got to get some charge on the phone before calling.


----------



## thebluebumblebee (Sep 2, 2014)

Norton said:


> Stick with it a bit longer- it's worth it! Better output and good stability await your efforts
> 
> EDIT-* BOINC Manager 7.0.27* is available in the "Ubuntu Software Center" (in the LH menu) it runs fine on all of my Linux rigs


I'm seeing 7.2.42, and that is what I have been running.


----------



## t_ski (Sep 3, 2014)

Ubuntu is nice, cheap and stable.  If you're building dedicated crunchers, free can't be beat.  The only drawback is that if you don't know Linux (like me), troubleshooting is extremely difficult.


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 3, 2014)

Well I got the system up and running yesterday. Seems I've been suffering from dyslexia everytime I would read about Boinc, as I've always read it as Bionic (no wonder why I was having issues installing it).

Ok so now, I have another question. Is there a program like CPUZ that works with Ubuntu? I OC'ed the 3930k in the BIOs to the 4.3ghz I was running it at before with Windows 7, but all the system info apps I've tried show the CPU running at 3.2ghz (stock). I honestly do not think the CPU is running at the 4.3ghz I set it to run at because its' temps are 10'c lower than when it was running Windows.


----------



## ThE_MaD_ShOt (Sep 3, 2014)

let me search around. Ubuntu will just say display what it reads from the cpu's id. My 920 is oced and ubuntu reads the stock speed for it also. You may run a few degrees cooler with ubuntu as it actually is alot more efficient then windows is with Boinc. Also with my new crunching rigs that I plan to overclock, I run windows on it for a few days to burn it in good and monitor everything before I switch it over to Linux. I keep a drive with a base windows install and a boinc install just for this.


Also from the command line you can run *lscpu | grep "MHz" *to show actual processor speed.

And *cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "MHz" *to show actual speed of each core.


*sudo dmidecode -t processor | grep "Speed". *Will not only give you a MHz in use but also the Maximum you can push / overclock your CPU to.


For the current CPU speed one can dynamically watch this change in real time using : 
*sudo watch -n 1 cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq

*
Okay thats enough for now. LOL


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 3, 2014)

Command line? Where do I find that?


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 3, 2014)

ThE_MaD_ShOt said:


> let me search around. Ubuntu will just say display what it reads from the cpu's id. My 920 is oced and ubuntu reads the stock speed for it also. You may run a few degrees cooler with ubuntu as it actually is alot more efficient then windows is with Boinc. Also with my new crunching rigs that I plan to overclock, I run windows on it for a few days to burn it in good and monitor everything before I switch it over to Linux. I keep a drive with a base windows install and a boinc install just for this.
> 
> 
> Also from the command line you can run *lscpu | grep "MHz" *to show actual processor speed.
> ...





BarbaricSoul said:


> Command line? Where do I find that?



Ok, I figured out the command line thing, and I tried all the commands Shot said to do, and all of them show my CPU is running at 3.2ghz, yet in the BIOs, it is set to run at 4.3ghz. WTF? HELP PLEASE?


----------



## kenkickr (Sep 3, 2014)

ctrl-x should pull up terminal for you or just go through software manager and type in terminal


----------



## Tallencor (Sep 3, 2014)

http://askubuntu.com/questions/218567/any-way-to-check-the-clock-speed-of-my-processor
Not like I run linux but there is are a few more commands here and makes ref to running as super user.


----------



## t_ski (Sep 4, 2014)

BarbaricSoul said:


> Well I got the system up and running yesterday. Seems I've been suffering from dyslexia everytime I would read about Boinc, as I've always read it as Bionic (no wonder why I was having issues installing it).
> 
> Ok so now, I have another question. Is there a program like CPUZ that works with Ubuntu? I OC'ed the 3930k in the BIOs to the 4.3ghz I was running it at before with Windows 7, but all the system info apps I've tried show the CPU running at 3.2ghz (stock). I honestly do not think the CPU is running at the 4.3ghz I set it to run at because its' temps are 10'c lower than when it was running Windows.


Norton mentioned psensor earlier


----------



## Nordic (Sep 4, 2014)

Psensor just does temps. I mentioned conky earlier but did not tell you what it does. Conky give you cpu speed at least, but not volts. That is the annoying thing about linux is that windows mass use gives it all the good apps.


----------



## xvi (Sep 4, 2014)

RebeccaBlackOS is best OS.

Seriously, I'm actually kind of interested in ReactOS and am curious to know what kind of performance we'll see out of that.

Otherwise, for a dedicated cruncher, just Debian Server. Install the base system only then "apt-get install boinc* ssh-server", modify gui_rpc_auth.cfg and remote_access.cfg (or whatever they're named) to allow you to connect with the BOINC client or BoincView, done.

Puget Systems had a mildly interesting article about HyperThreading and various OSes too, but they didn't test with enough threads to stress all logical cores when HT was enabled. HT performance also depends on workload.


----------



## Nordic (Sep 4, 2014)

xvi said:


> RebeccaBlackOS is best OS.
> 
> Seriously, I'm actually kind of interested in ReactOS and am curious to know what kind of performance we'll see out of that.
> 
> ...


As far as I know  the performance improvements on linux are from the latest kernal. 8.1 bridges that gap a bit from 7. I am curious about windows 9. React is based off an old windows kernal remade. I doubt the fact it uses less resources will make a big difference if it does use less resources. Also, I used to watch ReactOS until I heard that it was being funded by the russian government.

Interesting article from puget too. I have never felt HT was worth much, and with POV it really wasn't.


----------



## xvi (Sep 4, 2014)

james888 said:


> I have never felt HT was worth much, and with POV it really wasn't.



They only tested up to 40 threads when they had 80 logical cores. I think that might have had something to do with it.


----------



## Norton (Sep 4, 2014)

xvi said:


> They only tested up to 40 threads when they had 80 logical cores. I think that might have had something to do with it.



Thinking my 2600k and i7-970 do fairly well crunching with HT on 

2600k
http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?page=host&proj=bwcg&hostid=2853709
970
http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?page=host&proj=bwcg&hostid=2656516


----------



## Nordic (Sep 5, 2014)

Norton said:


> Thinking my 2600k and i7-970 do fairly well crunching with HT on
> 
> 2600k
> http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?page=host&proj=bwcg&hostid=2853709
> ...


I do have to admit your 2600k does outperform my 2500k.


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 7, 2014)

I thought I was going to get better scores with Linux (something like 30% more)? Why is my W7 3930k system almost doubling the scores of my 3930k Linux system (except for yetserday)? Any thoughts or tips before I give up and install W7 on both systems?

Windows 7 3930k system-







Linux 3930k system-


----------



## t_ski (Sep 7, 2014)

Is the Linux system fully spooled up?  Did you set the config file to report results immediately?


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Sep 7, 2014)

t_ski said:


> Is the Linux system fully spooled up?  Did you set the config file to report results immediately?




4 days, it should be fully spooled up. What config file? I've already said I've never run Linux before. If there is anything special I need to do, I don't know what it is and I'm asking what I need to do. To be perfectly honest, I don't even know if I have Linux configured right or where I'm suppose to get drivers for my hardware.


----------



## Nordic (Sep 7, 2014)

BarbaricSoul said:


> 4 days, it should be fully spooled up. What config file? I've already said I've never run Linux before. If there is anything special I need to do, I don't know what it is and I'm asking what I need to do. To be perfectly honest, I don't even know if I have Linux configured right or where I'm suppose to get drivers for my hardware.


For everything but amd or nvidea gpu's, drivers are automatic and perfectly fine. All the same, you might want to go into system settings and click update, or even easier open the terminal and type "sudo apt-get update" to update everything.

Also, you can edit the config file just like windows in all the same ways it is just more difficult to get to. I will look for it, but @ThE_MaD_ShOt wrote a good guide not too long ago.


----------



## Norton (Sep 7, 2014)

james888 said:


> For everything but amd or nvidea gpu's, drivers are automatic and perfectly fine. All the same, you might want to go into system settings and click update, or even easier open the terminal and type "sudo apt-get update" to update everything.
> 
> Also, you can edit the config file just like windows in all the same ways it is just more difficult to get to. I will look for it, but *@ThE_MaD_ShOt wrote a good guide not too long ago*.



I have this post from @ThE_MaD_ShOt bookmarked and use it all the time:

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/boinc-config-utility.188567/page-2#post-2977756

Should have all of the info you need to make the adjustment


----------



## OneMoar (Sep 8, 2014)

if you are on AMD you can change the clockspeed/voltage with TurionPowerControl or amdMSRtweaker https://github.com/johkra/amdmsrtweaker-lnx
I use turion power control to set a custom cool and quiet profile that will automatically overclock it to either 3.8 or 4.2Ghz depending on the load
be wary of blindly using apt-get if you aren't versed in its ways you WILL break your system
as for core performance linux will always have a SLIGHT edge in heavily threaded CPU Performance so long as the kernel version is current the actual  distro matters not


----------



## ThE_MaD_ShOt (Sep 11, 2014)

Norton said:


> I have this post from @ThE_MaD_ShOt bookmarked and use it all the time:
> 
> http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/boinc-config-utility.188567/page-2#post-2977756
> 
> Should have all of the info you need to make the adjustment


This should work with newer versions also. I am going to install Ubuntu 14.4 with the newest Boinc client when my next 8320 combo gets here.


----------



## thebluebumblebee (Sep 11, 2014)

I just have not seen the need for that with the newest client.   It won't hurt, but it's, IMHO, unnecessary.
TPU's WCG/BOINC Team


----------

