Bootable F@H for COVID-19

[jelabarre59]

I have some older machines I would want to set up for a F@H setup, but they have either no OS install at all, or the install is messed up and doesn't run right. I'd like to find a minimal CD/DVD boot image that would let me just start them up and run them for computational units.

The most recent messages I've seen from here are 10 years old already, and there was never a resolution on getting a bootable, dedicated image. Now would be the time to put something together.

I saw an article at https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/covid-folding-home about a group there working on F@H for this, although it didn't have anything about a boot disk either. I would have emailed him to suggest a bootable disk, but the only way to contact him is through Twitter (which I have NO desire to ever use).

Mod Edit: Fixed URL - PantherX

[PantherX]

Welcome to the F@H Forum jelabarre59,

If you're familiar with VMware, there's an appliance which is ready for use (not officially supported by F@H):
https://flings.vmware.com/vmware-applia ... me#summary

Alternatively, you can perform a Linux installation and run them headless if you would like. I think that a live CD might be functional but I am not sure if that would be suitable for your setup or not.

[jelabarre59]

Well, if I were setting up a machine to run VMWare, I'd already have something I could run the client on directly. I was thinking something where you could take unprovisioned machines, and just boot them directly into a minimal environment just for running F@H.

Besides, my day job is working on a competitor to VMWare <g>

In actuality you'd probably want a USB boot with a persistent config partition, so maybe an installer vs an ISO image.

[Josem]

+1 for wanting this

[MeeLee]

It's easy nowadays to put Linux on a USB stick (like Debian, Mint, Ubuntu or variants, or Redhat/Fedora/CentOs or variants).
Easiest ones are Ubuntu and variants, Mint, or Fedora.

Installation procedure should speak for itself. Take an older Ubuntu for older PCs, like 18.04. Least amount of trouble with that.

Once done, install FAH Client, and Control.

Then install OpenCL if you want to fold on GPU.
Then set up and configure your account.

[Josem]

MeeLee,

Forgive my ignorance here - I'm not familiar with the world of Linux.

I've had trouble installing software on a persistent basis for bootable USB sticks. I've been able to create two partitions on a USB drive (using rufus) but not then been able to install software. Any advice or hints on what I should do here? Maybe there's an existing guide, but I haven't found one.

Just to be clear, I cannot write to the hard drive on the PC at all - only the USB drive.

[NRT_AntiKytherA]

You can a linux distribution to a USB stick properly like you would an internal drive instead of messing around with live ISO and persistence, just make sure that is the target drive during installation instead of any internal ones. I've done this before myself with Fedora and a Sandisk Ultra Fit USB 3.0, it wasn't ludicrously slow either.

[MeeLee]

Yes, you install from a source USB to a destination USB.
However, for $20 you can get a great SATA 64 to 128GB SSD online.
I would go that route.
Even a 64GB SSD is more than enough; 32GB even works, but they're pretty much the same price, and harder to find than larger size SSDs.