I recently installed Linux Mint 9 x64 and have been tinkering with it. I’ve also gotten into Folding@Home and am part of a team at W7Forums. However, installing the 64-bit SMP2 client for my triple-core turned out to be a slightly less out-of-the-box experience than it was on Windows. Some dependencies that have been upgraded for Ubuntu 9.10, or Mint 9, don’t work quite the same. Or something.

I’m not a programmer, or an engineer; I like to keep stuff like this simple. So I’m posting these instructions here as to how to install and successfully run the SMP 64-bit client on Mint 9 or Ubuntu 9.10. These instructions work at the time of writing, are intended only for FAH SMP 64-bit client version 6.29, and on Mint 9 or Ubuntu 9.10.

I gathered these instructions and scripts from various sources. I don’t know what makes them work, but they did work for me. If you hose your system, don’t come crying to me.

1. Open Terminal, and enter sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

2. Enter mkdir -p ~/folding

3. Enter cd ~/folding

4. Enter curl -O http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/FAH6.29-Linux.tgz (the -O after curl is a dash and a capital o, and not a zero) – if you do not have curl installed, you can use wget http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/FAH6.29-Linux.tgz instead

5. Enter tar xzf FAH6.02-Linux.tgz

6. Enter chmod +x fah6

7. Enter ./fah6 -configonly -smp and configure the client

8. Once back in Terminal, enter “LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/lib64-fah ./fah6 -smp -verbosity 9 $* &” > fah

9. Enter chmod +x fah

10. Check that wget, bash, binutils, bc and awk are installed; if not, or if you don't know how to find out, install with sudo apt-get

11. Use sudo -k to make sure your elevated privileges are dropped; you have to be logged in as the very user you want to always launch the FAH client on, and without elevated privileges, or the following will not work right

12. Enter cd ~

13. Enter wget http://darkswarm.org/whosyerdaddy-0.6.sh (or, if server/file is unavailable, try wget http://mjs.cc/fah/whosyerdaddy-0.6.sh)

14. Enter chmod +x whosyerdaddy-0.6.sh

15. Enter cp -a /lib ~/lib64-fah (this gave me a few permission errors, but I just ignored them)

16. Enter cd ~/lib64-fah

17. Enter ~/whosyerdaddy-0.6.sh

18. You should be done.

At this point you should be able to launch the client by executing the fah script we created into the ~/folding directory:
~/folding/fah

Good luck!

These instructions were put together by combining the original guide, as to how to install a Linux SMP client, with F@H forum member Tear’s script and great instructions. The whosyerdaddy-0.6.sh script is Tear’s, and I’m only hosting a copy of it on my server in case his site goes down and someone really needs to get their hands on it in order to get these instructions to work.

Using a program called Synergy, you can share a keyboard and a mouse between a Windows 7 machine and a Mac. In this post I try to recreate the steps I took to set up Synergy Server on my Windows 7 64-bit PC and Synergy Client on a Mac Mini G4 running Leopard.

First, we will decide that the Windows machine will be called Windows, and the Mac will be called…Mac. Download the GUI clients for Synergy for both machines. I used SynergyInstaller-1.3.1.exe on Windows, and SynergyKM-1.0b7-Installer.dmg on Leopard.

I highly recommend assigning both machines their own IP addresses. Usually your router will use something called DHCP to assign an “internal” IP address to each machine as they connect to it. These IPs tend to change when your machine reconnects to the router after a reboot for example. You can set up your computers to pick their own IPs instead. I have found it easier to connect via Synergy if I am assigning Synergy screens with IP aliases, instead of just counting on hostnames. But it’s your call.

Configuring Synergy on the PC is very straight-forward. Just install it, and check the option to “share this computer’s keyboard/mouse” if that is what you’re doing. Once done, click Turn On Synergy. There will be a green circle in the system tray signaling that it’s running.

Now configure the client on the Mac.

Please keep in mind that when you configure the server and the client, the information you provide has to match. Make sure you type in the hostnames, IPs, and edge shortcuts correctly.

In my setup, I have two screens called Windows and Mac. Both have assigned IP addresses as aliases. Both have the following shortcuts configured: Mac is to the right of Windows, and Windows is to the left of Mac. This means that if I move my mouse over the right-hand edge of my Windows screen, it’ll show up on the Mac desktop; similarly, moving it past the left edge on the Mac will bring it back to Windows. It may seem like it’s redundant to provide both machines with both details, but it’s not; it’s absolutely necessary.

Once the client is configured on the Mac, it will try to connect. If connecting to the server fails, first check the configuration to make sure you dotted your i’s and crossed your t’s, and that all the information matches. Then, check your firewall software (or Windows Firewall) on the Windows machine to make sure it’s allowing connections through to the Synergys (server) application. Check Windows 7′s sharing settings and make sure you’ve got everything turned on appropriately. I recommend dropping the encryption to the older kind, since I’m not sure Leopard can handle 128-bit encryption. You can also add the Windows machine’s IP and hostname into the Mac’s hosts file: In Terminal, type sudo su - and enter your password. Then type nano /etc/hosts and hit enter. Add 192.168.2.6     Windows to the bottom of the file, if 192.168.2.6 is the IP your Windows machine is using (if not, use the correct one), then press Control-O and accept changes to save the file, and reboot. Start SynergyKM again.

I have also found that using Finder to connect to the Windows machine through the Connect To Server option before you launch the client can be helpful.

If you are having difficulty getting Synergy2 to play nice with Windows and Mac, hit me up in the comments and I’ll try to help you get it running. It’s definitely doable.

For whatever reason, the version of Firefox in my fresh installation of Linux Mint 8 always has the auto-scroll function disabled by default. Auto-scroll is useful if you have a mouse with a scroll wheel; you can just click on the scroll wheel and then move your pointer up and down on the screen, automatically scrolling the web page as you go.

If this feature is disabled in your Firefox browser, you can enable it! Start by typing about:config in the address field, and hit enter. You may get an amusing warning, which you can feel free to dismiss. Look up general.autoScroll in the long list of settings, and switch its value from false to true.