I tried for a few hours to search for a solution on the net and forum but couldn't find anything.

I have an ATI 4770 video card (it's supported). I'm using Ubuntu 10.04. My bioinc is 6.10.58. How come the Boinc Manager can't find my GPU? Then when I run 'boinc' in the shell, it does show my GPU?

Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT Starting BOINC client version 6.10.58 for i686-pc-linux-gnu
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT Config: GUI RPC allowed from:
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT Libraries: libcurl/7.19.7 OpenSSL/0.9.8k zlib/1.2.3.3 libidn/1.15
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT Data directory: /var/lib/boinc-client
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86GHz [Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 6]
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT Processor: 2.00 MB cache
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT OS: Linux: 2.6.32-24-generic
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT Memory: 2.95 GB physical, 1.46 GB virtual
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT Disk: 284.90 GB total, 87.66 GB free
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT Local time is UTC -4 hours
Thu 12 Aug 2010 08:46:56 PM EDT No usable GPUs found

and in shell

12-Aug-2010 20:59:28 [---] Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86GHz [Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 6]
12-Aug-2010 20:59:28 [---] Processor: 2.00 MB cache
12-Aug-2010 20:59:28 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm tpr_shadow
12-Aug-2010 20:59:28 [---] OS: Linux: 2.6.32-24-generic
12-Aug-2010 20:59:28 [---] Memory: 2.95 GB physical, 1.46 GB virtual
12-Aug-2010 20:59:28 [---] Disk: 284.90 GB total, 87.66 GB free
12-Aug-2010 20:59:28 [---] Local time is UTC -4 hours
12-Aug-2010 20:59:28 [---] ATI GPU 0: ATI Radeon HD 4700/4800 (RV740/RV770) (CAL version 1.4.736, 512MB, 960 GFLOPS peak)

and

:~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon HD 4770
OpenGL version string: 3.3.10057 Compatibility Profile Context

Permissions. Allow the user account you normally use to find the ATI drivers. BOINC checks for a certain library file within the drivers. If your user account can't read the drivers (its path isn't in your user account's path structure), BOINC won't find the library file.

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Thanks! Do I edit the cc_config.xml file? How do I add the path?

I am able to run 'fglrxinfo' anywhere in the shell. So I guess it's in the path in linux?

Sorry, I'm not an advanced linux user.

Neither am I. Best is to look through your man pages, or do a search on the internet, I think.

What I found so quickly are commands such as PATH= and LD_LIBRARY_PATH=
Do a search for those.

Which project(s) are you going to use it for? Or perhaps better asked, what are your intentions? Use it on e.g. Milkyway for Stream calculations, or do you want OpenCL capability?

For if the latter, you will need to install the ATI Stream SDK v2.1 as well, and that's a whole different kettle of fish.

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Permissions. Allow the user account you normally use to find the ATI drivers. BOINC checks for a certain library file within the drivers. If your user account can't read the drivers (its path isn't in your user account's path structure), BOINC won't find the library file.

Doesn't the following tell me that my user account can get to the drivers and that maybe it's boinc who can't???

skip@crunch26:~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series  
OpenGL version string: 4.0.10057 Compatibility Profile Context

skip@crunch26:~$ uname -a
Linux crunch26 2.6.32-24-generic #39-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 28 05:14:15 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux
skip@crunch26:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
Release:	10.04
Codename:	lucid

skip@crunch26:~$ aticonfig --odgc

Default Adapter - ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series  
                            Core (MHz)    Memory (MHz)
           Current Clocks :    400           1000
             Current Peak :    855           1000
  Configurable Peak Range : [600-875]     [1000-1200]
                 GPU load :    0%

---

- da shu @ HeliOS,
"A child's exposure to technology should never be predicated on an ability to afford it."

I wanna use mine on DNETC.

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- da shu @ HeliOS,
"A child's exposure to technology should never be predicated on an ability to afford it."

The problem, at least with my v10.04 Ubuntu x64 and the fglrx driver is that the user "boinc" doesn't have access to the x-session. You can fix this by adding:

xhost local:boinc

into your startup script: /etc/init.d/boinc-client

right after the start function as below:

start()
{
  log_begin_msg "Starting $DESC: $NAME"
  if is_running; then
    log_progress_msg "already running"
  else
    sleep 5
    xhost local:boinc &> /dev/null
    start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --pidfile $PIDFILE \
      --make-pidfile --user $BOINC_USER --chuid $BOINC_USER \
      --chdir $BOINC_DIR --exec $BOINC_CLIENT -- $BOINC_OPTS
  fi
  log_end_msg 0

Credit for finding this goes to 'gfarmerfr', Ubuntu guy extraordinaire!


One problem with this is boinc-client may not start at boot up. So you may have to run "sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client start" after you log on to start the client.

The other alternative is to go into /etc/default/boinc-client and change the default user from "boinc" to "root". If you don't mind the security issues with this method it's actually the simplest.

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- da shu @ HeliOS,
"A child's exposure to technology should never be predicated on an ability to afford it."

Sorry to bring that posting up again, but just wanted to confirm that this problem also exists for archlinux and your solution works like a charm!!

Sorry to bring that posting up again, but just wanted to confirm that this problem also exists for archlinux and your solution works like a charm!!

Thanx, That's REALLY cool to hear. At the request of local moderator I've created a thread with all the details on this topic in a new thread: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=6307

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- da shu @ HeliOS,
"A child's exposure to technology should never be predicated on an ability to afford it."