On my full-time Linux cruncher (Fedora Core 4), I have been running R@H from within X-Windows. I do this because I don't know the workings of Fedora as well as I do with Slackware (Many parts of the system are organized differently, such as boot scripts.), and I often have to make minor adjustments to this computer since it connects to the Internet through a laptop that isn't always there.

However, it seems wasteful to leave X-Windows running the rest of the time (when the monitor is turned off and the computer is cranking away). How does R@H react to starting and stopping X-Windows while it's running? Also, when re-starting X-Windows, will the GUI come back up like it was before?

Mostly, I'm concerned about screwing up R@H or the system, itself. It's crunching very nicely, but I'm trying to squeeze a little more power out of it. I apologize if I seem paranoid, but the computer is in a rather inconvenient location to do a major re-installation.

Thanks in advance!

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"There are obviously many things which we do not understand, and may never be able to."
Leela (From the Mac game "Marathon", released 1995)

I don't use X11 myself, I only use the command-line-interface (CLI) under Unix.

I'm not sure I understand your question correctly, but let me give it a try anyway:

Keep in mind, X-Windows is just used to display the graphics. If you invoke BOINC via the Unix boot scripts (or crontab), it's not as if BOINC and Rosetta were child processes of the GUI (some X11 process), so it'd exit / get killed upon its parent process exits (exiting X11).

e.g. in my case:

# ps -l -U boinc
F S   UID   PID  PPID  C PRI  NI ADDR SZ WCHAN  TTY          TIME CMD
0 S  1002  2120     [b]1[/b]  0  69   0 -  1871 select ?        00:00:13 boinc_client
0 R  1002 25907  2120 58  79  19 - 45908 -      ?        02:03:46 rosetta_5.07_i
1 S  1002 25908 25907  0  79  19 - 45908 poll   ?        00:00:00 rosetta_5.07_i
1 S  1002 25909 25908  0  78  19 - 45908 nanosl ?        00:00:00 rosetta_5.07_i
1 S  1002 25910 25908  0  79  19 - 45908 nanosl ?        00:00:00 rosetta_5.07_i

so you see that boinc_client's parent process (PPID) is PID 1, which is init. So BOINC only exits if init() itself goes down (system shutdown or go to single user mode etc). And you can see the PPID's of Rosetta's own 4 processes (3 are standard for all BOINC projects and Rosetta recently added the so helpful "watchdog" thread for a total of 4)

Btw, BOINC science app graphics are handled by a separate thread see BOINC graphics API

Bottom line, if you invoke boinc_client via boot scripts or crontab (the equivalent of running it as a Service under Win), you can safely shutdown X11.

If, on the other hand, you invoke boinc_client by hand from some Xterm under X11 (the equivalent of running it from explorer.exe under Win), the it will exit upon exiting X11, unless you detach it from controlling terminal.

If anyone wants help with running BOINC under Linux as a "service" (i.e. invoke automatically on bootup) let me know and I'll copy my own setup here (I did it by hand from crontab, as my Debian has no /etc/rc.local and I did a custom install, not via apt-get). I sent it in the past, so you can search my own posts for it. Plus I delay BOINC startup on bootup by ~10min or so, to give time to the system to "settle down" before running benchmarks etc.

I explained my setup (crontab entry + invoke script) here

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Best UFO Resources
Wikipedia R@h
How-To: Join Distributed Computing projects that benefit humanity

Okay, thanks. I wasn't sure how the whole parent-child process thing worked, when X11 was involved. That cleared it up, nicely. Much appreciated!

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"There are obviously many things which we do not understand, and may never be able to."
Leela (From the Mac game "Marathon", released 1995)

I also provide a boot script to start boinc. Look in the AddOns section of the RAH home page (or any Boinc project's home page) and look for boincctl. Comments in the script should clue you in as to what you need to change for your system. Not guarenteed to work on all Linux system since I only have access to my home Fedora Core system.

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-Charlie

In addition to Charles' boot script (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/autostart_dennett.txt) I've also come across another BOINC-Linux howto page at
http://www.spy-hill.net/~myers/help/boinc/unix.html

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Best UFO Resources
Wikipedia R@h
How-To: Join Distributed Computing projects that benefit humanity