Folding@Home Folding on Ubuntu 18.14...how I did it...almost

[Vester]

My first work unit had reached about 5% when I rebooted my computer. Since I have come back, GPU work units fail. Troubleshooting...and my attempted repairs really got bad. I will reinstall another day when I want to isolate all day. If you see the error of my ways below, I'd appreciate your comments.

These comments are limited to installation of AMDGPU-PRO drivers on Ubuntu 18.04.

References:

a. How-To Install/Uninstall AMD Radeon™ Software AMDGPU-PRO Driver for Linux® on an Ubuntu System

b. Radeon™ Software for Linux® 18.20 Release Notes

c. Radeon Software for Linux Installation

1. Before starting the installation, I followed the steps listed for installation of AMDGPU-PRO for Ubuntu 16.10 in reference (a) to ensure that the system is up-to-date before installing. In terminal,

sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade
sudo reboot

2. I did not follow all of the steps as written in the Release Notes, reference b, but I followed the sequence of events.

3. From reference (b), Download Radeon™ Software for Linux® version 18.20 for Ubuntu 18.04 to the Downloads folder.

4. Navigate to the Downloads folder, and right-click on amdgpu-pro-18.20-673703-ubuntu-18.04.tar.xz and select “Extract here.” The extracted folder is amdgpu-pro-18.20-673703-ubuntu-18.04.

5. Open folder amdgpu-pro-18.20-673703-ubuntu-18.04 and right-click in an open space (not on a file). Select “Open in terminal.”

6. NOTE: The entry "–headless" in the next step does not mean that we are running a headless computer (no monitor). It means “only OpenCL support.” Without that entry, you will not get beyond the Ubuntu login screen, if that far, when you reboot.

7. From reference (c )and Nick Name, I learned that I need to enter the following in the open terminal window. You can copy and enter it to terminal by right-clicking and pasting on the terminal cursor (control V will not work). This code is only good for PRE-Vega 10 video cards such as mine. You can see the code for other cards in reference (c).

amdgpu-pro-install -y --opencl=legacy,pal --headless

Press enter and the amdgpu-pro drivers will be installed.

8. In terminal, type "reboot" without quotation maks and press enter.

9. Your computer should boot to the login screen. Enter your password before celebrating. If it hangs before getting there or if it reverts back to the login screen after you enter your password, you do not have to reinstall Ubuntu as I have done in the past. You can press keys Ctrl, Alt, F1 or F2 or F3 to get to a login where you enter your username and it prompts for your password. That puts you in a terminal where you can uninstall your borked installation by entering

amdgpu-pro-uninstall

Now try again and good luck!

 

[Nick Name]

Do they fail immediately or after running awhile? The latter might indicate running out of VRAM or some other hardware problem. What does the log say?

 

[Vester]

The first WU failed at about 5% and subsequent jobs failed immediately.

In trying to fix the issue, I managed to mess it up to the point that I could not log back into the installation of Ubuntu 18.04 LTE. Therefore, I do not know what the log said other than "No WU for this configuration" as if I did not have the amdgpu-pro driver installed.

The hardware ran Folding@home on Windows 10 and I have no reason to believe that it had a hardware limitation. This is a "Vester" problem. :-D

 

[Vester]

I reinstalled Ubuntu 18.20 and downloaded amdgpu-pro* driver. During installation of the driver, it would not accept the --no-dkms instruction for installation, so I removed --no-dkms. At the end of installation it said that dkms had not been installed, but I found the dkms folder with all of the amd information included in /var. Amdgpu-pro files were in various folders in the system, so I don't know what is going wrong with my installation.

I restarted the computer twice and observed no video abnormalities before installing the Folding@home client. For the gpu -1 that I added, the log had the entry that no opencl device was found.

I rebooted the computer and the video was crashing so badly that I could not login with Ctrl+Alt+F3.

This may be a permissions issue, but I added vester to the video group. Maybe folding at home needs some permissions. I don't know.

Meanwhile, I'll run Windows 10 until I have a computer that will run Steam OS which comes with amdgpu-pro drivers. (My old computer does not have UEFI.)


"

 

[Vester]

I reinstalled Ubuntu 18.04 and tried an earlier kernel and a few other wild tricks but "dpkg -l amdgpu-pro" says "no packages found matching amdgpu-pro." I am downloading a beta version of SteamOS that boots in BIOS.

 

[Vester]

I booted SteamOS and installed FAH but could not open Advanced Control before I went to bed at midnight. SteamOS is for gaming, but it has a desktop mode and I can make it boot to desktop. It does not have Java installed yet. I will have to get a text editor since the command gedit did not open a text editor. I'll get back on it after taking care of some of my neglected duties. I want to find some folders who run FAH on SteamOS. There must be someone other than me.

The installation of SteamOS is a hoot! I downloaded SteamOSDVD.iso and used balenaEtcher in Windows to make a bootable USB flash drive. I purposely removed my drive with Windows on it to avoid any chance of installing SteamOS on the wrong drive. On the installation screen it had three modes and I chose to let it automatically install. I only required me to specify the location of grub (/dev/sda from multiple choices) and later I had to signup for SteamOS membership before logging onto my computer. Feedback during installation is good and the installation was fun to watch. There is much more for me to learn and that keeps me happy.

 

[Nick Name]

I reinstalled Ubuntu 18.20 and downloaded amdgpu-pro* driver. During installation of the driver, it would not accept the --no-dkms instruction for installation, so I removed --no-dkms. At the end of installation it said that dkms had not been installed, but I found the dkms folder with all of the amd information included in /var. Amdgpu-pro files were in various folders in the system, so I don't know what is going wrong with my installation.

I restarted the computer twice and observed no video abnormalities before installing the Folding@home client. For the gpu -1 that I added, the log had the entry that no opencl device was found.

I rebooted the computer and the video was crashing so badly that I could not login with Ctrl+Alt+F3.

This may be a permissions issue, but I added vester to the video group. Maybe folding at home needs some permissions. I don't know.

Meanwhile, I'll run Windows 10 until I have a computer that will run Steam OS which comes with amdgpu-pro drivers. (My old computer does not have UEFI.)


"

Could be permissions, that's still something of a black art to me. I'm still wondering if the GPU is going to work with that driver.

 

[Vester]

Steam's desktop is lacking many Gnome3 features. For the desktop, the amdgpu-pro drivers are not installed, but are easily installed in the Package Manager. However, Java Runtime is not present and I could not view the FAH Advanced Control Panel. The Linux installation of FAH was as a service which precludes GPU folding. In short, it is nice to look at but Steam community support is totally lacking and in fact somewhat hostile to Desktop users. I'll keep looking for a Windows alternative and crunch in Win 10 so that my wife won't fuss about me staying up at all hours. ;-)