Hello,

I now there is some useful information in the FAQ forum but not what I need to know first.
I will try Linux on a dual boot on my new cruncher. Yes I still Win7 for my work thus dual boot is the option I go for. There a two SSD's in the system, one with Win7 the other is for Linux. Also two HD's for all the data.

Now at first: what distro is best to use for GPU crunching, CPU crunching and general PC work?

I have a dual boot with XP but that pc has a PSU of only 350W and the P4, no cruncher anymore (to slow).
I installed the BOINC package that was in it, but I never got possibility to look through the folders as I had no rights. Even when I made myself super user it didn't work. That BOINC version was very old by the way. I need to place a cc_config file in the data folder off course but when I have no rights, even it is my own PC and I installed it myself, its a bit frustrating. Same as Windows often is. Have bought a book for Dummies and Ubunty Kung-Fu but is not a great help yet.
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Greetings from TJ

Hello,

I now there is some useful information in the FAQ forum but not what I need to know first.
I will try Linux on a dual boot on my new cruncher. Yes I still Win7 for my work thus dual boot is the option I go for. There a two SSD's in the system, one with Win7 the other is for Linux. Also two HD's for all the data.

Now at first: what distro is best to use for GPU crunching, CPU crunching and general PC work?

I have a dual boot with XP but that pc has a PSU of only 350W and the P4, no cruncher anymore (to slow).
I installed the BOINC package that was in it, but I never got possibility to look through the folders as I had no rights. Even when I made myself super user it didn't work. That BOINC version was very old by the way. I need to place a cc_config file in the data folder off course but when I have no rights, even it is my own PC and I installed it myself, its a bit frustrating. Same as Windows often is. Have bought a book for Dummies and Ubunty Kung-Fu but is not a great help yet.

Thanks Dagorath.

Checking Internet I was thinking of Debian (as the systems admins of my work speak over all the time) or Suse, but it is Ubuntu to go for.

I did a few times installing a dual boot so that must work out well. I will use a separate SSD for the Linux OS and a separate HD for the files. So no messing with Windows.

Indeed previous I had BOINC installed as a daemon. I will now use the Berkeley installer. I saw the instruction at the FAQ in this forum.

However if you could write, what and how I need to install some stuff manually (the 32 bit things if I understand correct), that would be great.

Temperature control under Linux for CPU and GPU is a bit hard if I have read, but I think and hope that all have a safety build in and shut down when to warm?


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Greetings from TJ

Here is a list of all the packages (.deb files) that contain the additional 64-bit shared libs you will need for BOINC on Ubuntu 12.04:

libwxgtk2.8-dev
libcurl4-openssl-dev
libxss-dev
libstdc++6
freeglut3

The package containing the 32-bit compatability libs is named ia32-libs

The easy way to install them:

1) on Linux you don't need to shutdown apps when you install drivers/updates and whatnot and you rarely need to reboot, the exception is if you install a kernel update

2) click on an open area of the desktop (anywhere but in a running app's window) then press ctrl-alt-T to open a terminal

3) you can paste text at the command line by right-click in the terminal to produce the pop-up menu then left-click Paste, copy and paste the following command into the terminal:

sudo apt-get -y install libwxgtk2.8-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libxss-dev libstdc++6 freeglut3 ia32-libs

Temperature control under Linux for CPU and GPU is a bit hard if I have read, but I think and hope that all have a safety build in and shut down when to warm?

cd /etc/X11
sudo nvidia-xconfig --enable-all-gpus
sudo nvidia-xconfig --cool-bits=5
sudo shutdown -r now

I will recommend you also give openSUSE a try. It's not as popular as Ubuntu/Debian, but is a very solid and easy to use distro. We have a control center called YaST where you can set up most system-related things. Also, openSUSE's KDE desktop is unmatched as a lot of KDE developer use openSUSE and the KDE project uses openSUSE's build service to build their desktop environment for various other distros, not just SUSE.

That all said, openSUSE does need a bit of "setting up" as multimedia codecs and such are not installed by default. For that you use the Packman repo which contains more than you want :)
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Team Belgium

I have this thread for help, but have two questions first.
Win7 is on SSD1 and I want Ubuntu (already made the iso DVD) on SS2.
1) I suppose I can set in the BIOS that the PC must boot from SSD2, put the iso DVD in the drive and then boot?
2) Do I manually make something with a boot manager or goes this automatically.?
Did this in the past with XP and Ubuntu but on the same HD, was very easy.

Thanks.
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Greetings from TJ

I have never installed Linux on a 2 disk system either but I can tell you a few things. You don't have to set anything in the BIOS, just allow it to boot from the same disk it now boots from. You don't have to manually create a boot manager because the Ubuntu installer will do that for you. I can probably give more help if you can answer this... Do you want Ubuntu to use the entire SSD2 or do you want SSD2 to be partitioned with Win7 on one partition and Ubuntu on the other partition?

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

Yes indeed the entire SSD2 is for Linux.
____________
Greetings from TJ

If you have the Ubuntu install CD then the steps below will not work. In that case I would recommend downloading the Ubuntu Live ISO and burning it to DVD. If you are not sure if you have the plain installer CD or the Live DVD then boot it and see if it gives you the option mentioned in step 2 below. It won't erase any data until step 6 therefore going to just step 2 is completely safe.

1. Boot from the DVD
   
2. When you see the screen that gives the option to try Ubuntu versus install Ubuntu choose try Ubuntu, it will then boot to a working Ubuntu desktop without writing anything to disk
   
3. Type ctrl-alt-T to open a terminal, in the terminal enter sudo gparted which will start the Gnome partition editor GUI
   
4. Gparted will analyse your SSDs, your SSD1 will be named /dev/sda and the partitions on it will be given numbers. If, for example, /dev/sda has 3 partitions they will be named /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2 and /dev/sda3. Make sure /dev/sda is selected from the drop down list in the upper right corner of gparted's window, then check to see if one of the partitions is labeled "boot". If you have that "boot" partition then proceed. If you don't see a "boot" partition on /dev/sda then let me know because the instructions below will not work.
   
5. Now you want to work with your SSD2 which Ubuntu will name /dev/sdb so select /dev/sdb from the dropdown list in the upper-right corner. Then it will show you the partitions on /dev/sdb, they will be given numbers. If you have not formatted or partitioned /dev/sdb then it will be shown simply as "unallocated space". If that is the case then jump down to step 7.
   
6. At this point you want to delete the partitions on /dev/sdb (your SSD2), create a primary partition and format it with a typical Linux file system (not NTFS). Later, when the Ubuntu installer sees that partition it will want to use that space with little intervention or further work on your part. If /dev/sdb is formatted and partitioned by Win7 already then select the partition at the bottom of the list by clicking on it, then click the red circle with the slash through it to delete the partition. Note that the delete operation does not actually happen at this point, it is merely put into a list of pending operations. Now, working from the bottom of the list up, select the next partition and click the delete icon, repeat until all partitions are in the Pending Operations List.
   
   Now click the orange arrow and note that the last pending operation is removed from the list. If you think you have made any mistakes at this point you can use the orange arrow to back out. None of the operations in the pending list will be executed until you click the green checkmark.
   
   At this point double-check to make sure you have /dev/sdb selected from the dropdown list in the upper right corner. If you do then click the green checkmark to perform the pending operations. When the operations are complete the entire disk should show as "unallocated space".
   
   
7. Exit gparted. At this point you have the disks setup for the Ubuntu installer. If you want to take a break and resume at a later time you can just hit the poweroff button or do a reset to boot back to Win7 and boot from the Ubuntu Live DVD later and select Install Ubuntu instead of Try Ubuntu. If you want to proceed now then click the "Install Ubuntu" icon on the desktop.
   
   
8. When you get to the screen that asks you to make sure bthe computer is connected to the Internet and has X GB free disk space, select the 2 boxes near the bottom of the screen too so that free but proprietary codecs and other software (Flash, for example) get installed too.
   
   
9. Eventually you should see a screen that says the installer sees a Win7 installation on your system. One of the options should be to preserve Win7 and use free space (unallocated space) for Ubuntu. If you select that option the installer will not touch the Win7 partitions. It will only format /dev/sdb and install Ubuntu on it and setup the boot manager to allow you to select either Win7 or Ubuntu at boot time.
   
   After installation, when you boot to Ubuntu it will automatically mount any NTFS partitions in read-write mode so you can access all your Win7 files from Ubuntu.
   
   

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

Another option for installing Ubuntu and Windows 7 in a dual boot configuration.

When you install Ubuntu dual boot using the standard Ubuntu installer, it removes the Windows Master Boot Record (MBR) and replaces it with GRUB (Grand Unified Boot loader).

This option is useful if you want to keep the Windows Master Boot Record (MBR) in place. I've read that Windows will not install a service pack upgrade if the MBR is missing. The following technique will leave the MBR in place and install GRUB in a different location of your choosing. It requires that you install a free piece of software called EasyBCD on your Windows 7 instance.

The instructions are here http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/05/17/how-to-dual-boot-ubuntu-12-04-and-windows-7/

I've been using this technique to install Ubuntu/Windows dual boot on two hard drives for over two years including Ubuntu 13.10.

The one trick that I learned the hard way is this: if you want to completely remove and reinstall Ubuntu, you should first remove the Ubuntu entry from EasyBCD before you perform the reinstall, then re-add the Ubuntu entry to EasyBCD after the reinstall.

Hope that helps.

I've read that Windows will not install a service pack upgrade if the MBR is missing.

I've read that Windows will not install a service pack upgrade if the MBR is missing.

Thanks, captainjack, for updating me, I had no idea. Does that apply to Win8 too?

I recommend following the link captainjack provides if one wants a Linux-Win7 dualboot. The article is well written and uses screenshots for key points.

Would the moderator please hide my message 34528 upthread. The procedure in that message is obviously inferior.