VM guide for dual/quad core pcs

keith — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:29:21 GMT

Update: some alternative suggestions and tips added in.

Hope that this helps some of the quad users to maximise their points especially if they are only using 1 windows SMP client at the moment. This should also work for AMD dual core users as well and intel e6xxx series users.

This is a tip on how to install a linux smp client onto a VMware virtual machine running in windows . If you find any errors I'll correct them .This is done a different way to all the other installation guides out there on the internet.

EDIT 0. (tip supplied by tighthead) Some motherboards will require VT (Vanderpool Technology) to be enabled in their BIOS in order to run Virtualisation

1. head to VMware and download a copy of the VMware server installation file from http://www.vmware.com/download/server/

. click on the download now link for vmware server 1.0.5 and agree to the terms .Then download the master installer file for vmware for windows.

2 head to http://register.vmware.com/content/registration.html and register to obtain your free serial number one per console to be installed.

3. head to http://isv-image.ubuntu.com/vmware/ and download the harddisc image that you want to use. The files here are the virtual machines hard disc files with the OS already installed on them so saves some hassle later on.For Ubuntu use

http://isv-image.ubuntu.com/vmware/Ubuntu-7.10-desktop-amd64.zip

4. whilst thats downloading you can then install the VMware server.

- run the installer file you downloaded in step 1

- select complete install and ignore the warning about IIS being missing.

- Select an install location or use the default .

- A lot of guides say to answer 'yes' to disable the autorun but I found that doing this prevented me installing an alternative Linux distro either via the .iso or from a live cd.As you are using a pre installed os it doesn't really matter whether you answer 'yes' or 'no'.

- Click 'install' and wait whilst VMware installs.

- Then you will have to enter the serial number that you downloaded in step 2.

- Then click finish to exit the installer.

5. Open the Virtual disk zip file that you downloaded in step 3 and drag the contents of the virtual disk drive to c:\\virtual machines .(correct step pointed out by Phitore)

edit: Tighthead has installed to his E: drive and had a virtual machines folder appear on both his E: and C: drives. Drag the contents to the virtual machines folder that you will be using as you tell vmware where its hard disc is in step 6.

6. Launch the Vmware Server Console by double clicking the icon on the desktop.

edit: clicking in the display area gets you 'into the VM' and the vm's mouse will then be active.To get back to the windows desktop you have to press <ctrl><Alt>.

- select 'local host' to connect to. This option may not initially be available and you may have to give the server a bit of time to display it.

- click the 'new virtual machine ' icon

- click next on the first wizard window

- select Linux on the guest OS window and from the dropdown menu 'ubuntu 64 bit' then click next

- on the next screen , choose a name for the VM and click on browse and navigate to the folder you created in step 5 containing your virtual hard disc.

- on the next screen choose NAT as your network type

7. edit: at the hard disk size window , I went with the default 8GB option.

- then click finish

8. on the main vmware server console window ,

- click 'configure host' . (tip added after feedback from tighthead) If you don't see this on the main screen you can click on the 'home' tab and a list of options comes for installing and configuring VM's. If you have more than 1 VM running clicking on a VM's tab will then let you right click on the display area to access that VM's settings.The stop suspend and resume icons apply to the VM that has the display.

- click the memory tab. allow 800MB per VM you want to run and drag the slider that amount .

- click 'OK'

9. Along the top of the console window. Click on 'VM' then choose the settings menu option.

- click on memory and allocate 800MB to that machine. EDIT: I'm on the allow some ram to be swapped option just incase its needed.

- check that ethernet is NAT

- check that 2 processors is chosen , if not click the 2 processor option.

10. Click on the green right arrow near the top of the console to start the virtual machine and the machine should boot up into an Ubuntu desktop. The username and password for this installation is ubuntu

EDIT: password corected

11.Once you have an Ubuntu desktop , click on the Firefox icon and check that you have internet access available. At this stage , you may want to download any updates that are available, especially if you plan to experiment with Ubuntu as a platform. EDIT: (tip from Tighthead) make sure that your caps lock key is ON else keypad numbers come out weird.

- Navigate with firefox to stanford's linux download page and download the Linux SMP client and it will be saved to your desktop.

- click on 'places' on the ubuntu taskbar, then on 'home'

- right click , and on the menu that comes up 'create new folder' and create a folder called folding.

- drag the smp client download from the desktop to this folding folder

-right click on the SMP client download file and in the menu select 'extract here'-

- rename the folder created by the extraction process to FAH.

EDIT: I haven't installed vmtools, but you could do at this stage if you wanted . I think that they work with Ubuntu , but I know that they don't work with XUbuntu.

12. on the taskbar, start a terminal window via applications -->accessories --> terminal.<enter> means hit return/enter key on the keyboard.

-type in the terminal window

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs<enter>

ubuntu<enter> at the password prompt

'y' to continue when prompted

-wait for the ia32-libs to install.

EDIT: an alternative way to install ia32-libs is to click on ubuntu taskbar system-->administration--> synaptic package manager . enter ubuntu as the password and then scroll down in the list of available packages until you get to ia32-libs.mark it for installation and install it.(not done it this way so this is theoretical)

- now to create a shortcut, still in the terminal type

nano startfah<enter> (a text editor window will come up into which you type)

cd ~/folding/FAH<enter>

./fah6 -smp -forceasm -verbosity 9<enter>

now press control X and a message to save changes will come up .

Press Y and then press <enter> ( the text editor window will close and in the terminal window type)

chmod +x startfah

Edit: in this last step , Planeman had the client crashing , but cured it by removing the -forceasm flag (only report i've had of this).

13. at this stage anybody wanting to run 2 linux vms and has more than 2 GB of ram can copy the virtual machine folder and call it ubuntu2 which will save a lot of duplication of effort. Then just add a new client as you did before at step 6.

14. In a terminal window type

cd ~/folding/FAH <enter>

./fah6 -smp -configonly<enter>

then you enter the config details as for any client. Type no to the use advmethods prompt as the new core which that will download is massively memory hungry and quite slow as a result in a VM. If you are running two VMs you will have to do this again for the other VM so that you can give it a different machine ID.

15. To run the linux client, now or any time in the future , open a terminal window and type

./startfah<enter> and the folding client will be launched.

16. back in windows , once the linux VM is running, open the task manager and set affinity for the vmware-vmx.exe to cores 0 and 1 as they are both on the same die and run faster than splitting across two dies. Then you can start the windows SMP client and I leave it so that it can access all 4 cores so that it will mop up any spare cycles that the linux VM doesnt use.

UPDATE: I've been experimenting a bit and seem to have found that the best overall PPD seems to be with the linux VM set to use cores 0,1 and then set the affinity for the four windows SMP processes to 0,2 :1,2 :0,3 : and 1,3. Do not use 0,1 for a windows SMP if you are running the VM with 0,1 as your windows SMP will slow drasticallly as they wait for the 0,1 thread to use its few cycles left used by the VM. When I tried that it went to over an hour per step instead of approx 15 mins per step.

17. guinea pigs have posted to say yes it worked and theirsuggestions have been incorporated and credited and anybody else can now feel safe in attempting it.

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VM guide for dual/quad core pcs