New official SMP installation/configuration guides

[Xilikon]

I'm proud to announce that we now have a new section on the official Stanford F@H site. Vijay Pande asked me if I can write those guides to help users install and configure the clients (especially the SMP clients) and I accepted. I believe this will fill the void on the official site where nobody cannot find a good guide, relying only on scattered infos, official or not.

The Guides main page can be found at http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegrou ... lish/Guide and a direct link button will be available shortly.

The guides relevant to the SMP clients can be found at :

MPICH version : http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegrou ... GuideMPICH
DEINO version : http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegrou ... GuideDEINO

Those SMP guides is written for the 6.22 version in mind. Lots of parts is also relevant to the older 5.91/5.92 version so you can use them as well.

You can also find other guides for the Windows GPU and uniprocessor clients, Linux unified client, Macintosh clients (only missing the Macintosh classic client setup) and PS3 client.

Before we can add the button on the top for the whole public to access them freely, I'm asking everyone who use those guides to provide some feedback either in this thread or via PM. The feedback will help me tweak them so it's very easy to understand for a broad range of users.

Regards,
Stephane Renaud

EDIT : I completed the Service installation section so please look and make comments. It's confirmed to work fine in both DEINO and MPICH versions

[Great_Gig]

Excellent, perfect timing as I'm just about to start running 3 of these clients. A very good guide and clearly written, I will work my way through it to see if there is anything I don't understand, but it looks straightforward to me. It will be my first attempt at running the 6.22 beta - many thanks.

PS. By running these clients, does this entitle me to use the Beta Tester Avatar?

[John Naylor]

PS. By running these clients, does this entitle me to use the Beta Tester Avatar?

AFAIK there is no strict policy on that avatar (I don't think its an official one) and it is normally only used by members of the beta team (people who test early release units so that the units that go out on -advmethods should not fail too often). However, strictly speaking, anyone who uses the beta software is an F@H beta tester so I guess you can lol

[toTOW]

Great job Xilikon (and anyone else who helped on this)

[Great_Gig]

Well I just worked my way through it and set up my first client, I have to say it's brilliant, just what I needed and very simple to understand. One of the best guides I have seen for running F@H clients.

[7im]

Yes, nice job of collecting all of the existing documentation in to one easy to use location, and for filling in the remaining details about the new features of the v6 clients. The new screen caputures really help too.

[mikeb12]

awesome job Xilikon... been needed for a long time..

[Xilikon]

I finished writing the section on installing the client as a service. It works fine for both the DEINO or MPICH clients.

[Ivoshiee]

I finished writing the section on installing the client as a service. It works fine for both the DEINO or MPICH clients.

Not for all (XP Pro)....

[Xilikon]

I finished writing the section on installing the client as a service. It works fine for both the DEINO or MPICH clients.

Not for all (XP Pro)....

Added a note that it's not tested with XP yet... I'll fix the guide when I can fix a problem I have.

[John Naylor]

Is it necessary to have the quotes around the directory indicated by "-d" ? My CPU (not SMP) client has an unmodified -d variable (as in.... I haven't changed it from the original as set by the client when configuring) which does not have quotes. All 6 of my CPU services (2 on a duallie and 4 on this quad) don't have quotes. (And before you ask, these computers don't run long enough to complete SMP units in time)

Code: Select all

--- Opening Log file [August 23 15:01:08 UTC]


# Windows CPU Console Edition #################################################
###############################################################################

                       Folding@Home Client Version 6.20

                          http://folding.stanford.edu

###############################################################################
###############################################################################

Launch directory: C:\Users\Public\Documents\Folding@home-cpu\Core 1
Service: C:\Users\Public\Documents\Folding@home-cpu\Core 1\Folding@home-Win32-x86.exe
Arguments: -svcstart -d C:\Users\Public\Documents\Folding@home-cpu\Core 1 -verbosity 9 -forceasm

Launched as a service.
Entered C:\Users\Public\Documents\Folding@home-cpu\Core 1 to do work.

The advice given in the SMP guide is that quotes are required

[MstrBlstr]

I believe the quotes are only required if there is a space anywhere in the path. Although, it is always safer to use the quotes, and doesn't hurt anything if they are there.

IE... If your path was C:\Users\Public\Documents And Settings\Folding@home-cpu\Core 1 the quotes would be required on certain Win OS's.

Thus, it is safer to just say that they are required.

[Xilikon]

Agreed, better be safe than sorry

[MjW]

Congratulations for the new installation guides. Haven't installed an SMP client that easy for a very long time.

Great job!

[7im]

Xilikon, since you based most of your install guides on the already existing procedures in places like the FAQs, are you going to pull that info out of the FAQs to shorten and tidy up those pages as well?