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[Daniel]

Yes, that's right.
I mainly do it so that I can crunch projects like WEP-M+2 Project & Gaia@home, which don't have Windows applications.

You can choose how many of your CPU threads to assign to the VM.
At the moment I have 4 threads assigned to my VM, so I can crunch 4 CPU workunits simultaneously in the VM.
At the same time I am continuing to run GPU workunits (and some other CPU workunits) in Windows.

You can also choose how much memory to assign to the VM.
At the moment I have 8GB assigned to the VM.
The physical computer has 32GB of RAM in total, so there is still plenty left over for Windows.

[chooka03]

I've made a little progress. I went into the BIOS and turned on the VM part of it to get Ubuntu to install on the VM.


Edit - Bah... I'm close to giving up 
I got it all working but when I go to download BOINC for Linux, a box pops up and says its a shell file and I need to choose program.
Please don't tell me I have to open a terminal and type a bunch of jargon in to run a file like BOINC?

This looks to be a lot of work that I can't see myself doing across 6 pc's just to crunch Universe@Home with better credits. Linux is not user friendly for people like me who have only ever known Windows.


Edit #2 - Sorry... I just get really frustrated with software. I've always struggled with that stuff. .xml file etc. I hate it! and I'm just used to Windows .exe files which just work.
I'll await a response and see how difficult (my level of difficult) it is to get BOINC installed on Ubuntu via the VM and see how it goes.

[Daniel]

Hi Chooka,

There are a few different ways that you can install BOINC.

One way would be to open a terminal window and enter the following ...
sudo apt install boinc-client boinc-manager

But you don't have to manually type these sorts of commands.
You can just copy and paste the command from your browser into the terminal window, then hit Enter.

The Virtual machine I downloaded already had Firefox installed (which is the same browser that I use in Windows), so I can browse the web from within my VM and copy and paste text from the browser into the terminal window.

You can also copy and paste things from Windows as well.
In VirtualBox, if you right-click on your virtual machine, then click "Settings", there are various different things you can set.
If you click "General", then go to the "Advanced" tab, there is a dropdown box for "Shared Clipboard".
I have this set to "Bidirectional" which lets me copy and paste between Windows & Linux or vice-versa.

To paste text into the terminal window, just right-click anywhere in the window and select "Paste".

Another way that I have been installing software is with "Synaptic Package Manager".
It lists heaps of software packages along with descriptions and lets you install or uninstall them without having to enter any commands.
You can just click on the software you want to install and select "Mark for installation", then click the "Apply" button at the top of the screen.

I installed Synaptic with the following command ...
sudo apt install synaptic

Since installing Synaptic I have mostly been using this to install software rather than commands in the terminal.

In Synaptic you can browse through the various categories of software, or do a search for a specific program.

If you search for boinc you will find a package called boinc (the description is "metapackage for the BOINC client and the manager").

Just right-click on it and select "Mark for Installation", then click the "Apply" button at the top of the screen.

A popup appears that says "Mark additional required changes?" - click "Mark".

Click "Apply" again.

Note:
You can also get newer versions of BOINC from the following PPA (Personal Package Archive): https://launchpad.net/~costamagnagianfranco/+archive/ubuntu/boinc
(I can describe how to do this if you want - I just didn't want to complicate things too much)

[chooka03]

Oh boy....
Firstly, thank you for this - sudo apt install boinc-client boinc-manager
This actually worked but I couldn't find that simple instruction anywhere. Whilst it worked, I have no idea where it was installed or how to find it. 

I'm just going to leave it for the time being. I'm really not enjoying this and I see Universe@Home is down anyway.

Thanks for your time guys. Hopefully this info will help someone else over time. 

[Dingo]

Oh boy....
Firstly, thank you for this - sudo apt install boinc-client boinc-manager
This actually worked but I couldn't find that simple instruction anywhere. Whilst it worked, I have no idea where it was installed or how to find it. 

I'm just going to leave it for the time being. I'm really not enjoying this and I see Universe@Home is down anyway.

Thanks for your time guys. Hopefully this info will help someone else over time. 

Normally Ubuntu loads BOINC into the folder /usr/bin  It does not have a folder of it's own it is in with all the other user files.

[TouchuvGrey]

This thread has taught me a lot and given me much
to think about. Thank you everyone.

i'm going to look at a 2nd hand box on Thursday.
it ha a Core i5 6600  in it and i think i'll put Ubuntu
Linux in it.

Can anyone tell me how MW credits are when CPU
crunching in Linux as opposed to Windows ?

[tazzduke]

Greetings All

Yes, installing via the repository is the easiest, but when you need to muck around with config files, app config files and such, well in Linux Mint, you will find them under /lib/var/boinc-client

Unfortunately, you have to edit under Root/Admin, but with Linux Mint, and using there version of File Explorer, you have an option on the right click context menu, called Open As Root.

Which could mean a headspin for the newcomers

Cheers

[chooka03]

I found the usr/bin folder (finally) and I can see some file names like BOINC, BOINCMGR, etc but none of them open if I double click on them. A box just appears and says "There is no application for "shared library" files. Do you want to search for an application?

No idea what to do. 

[Dingo]

I found the usr/bin folder (finally) and I can see some file names like BOINC, BOINCMGR, etc but none of them open if I double click on them. A box just appears and says "There is no application for "shared library" files. Do you want to search for an application?

No idea what to do.

Are you running Ubuntu desktop (GUI) or the Ubuntu server (command line) ??

[chooka03]

Hi Dingo,

I've no idea actually but it's all good. I got it sorted 
Thanks for your help