here's how I managed to run Folding At Home on a Centos 8 ( and 7) system where few tricks needs to be done
For supported OS : Windows, Mac, supported Linux distribution, just follow https://foldingathome.org/support/faq/installation-guides/
Folding@home (FAH or F@h) is a distributed computing project for simulating protein dynamics, including the process of protein folding and the movements of proteins implicated in a variety of diseases. It brings together citizen scientists who volunteer to run simulations of protein dynamics on their personal computers. Insights from this data are helping scientists to better understand biology, and providing new opportunities for developing therapeutics.
from https://foldingathome.org/start-folding/ get latest RPMs
# wget https://download.foldingathome.org/releases/public/release/fahclient/centos-6.7-64bit/v7.6/fahclient-7.6.9-1.x86_64.rpm # wget https://download.foldingathome.org/releases/public/release/fahcontrol/centos-6.7-64bit/v7.6/fahcontrol-7.6.9-1.noarch.rpm # wget https://download.foldingathome.org/releases/public/release/fahviewer/centos-6.7-64bit/v7.6/fahviewer-7.6.9-1.x86_64.rpm
As those packages need python2 and python gtk libs and others (freeglut) , we need to install with –nodeps, ref https://foldingathome.org/support/faq/installation-guides/linux/manual-installation-advanced/
#rpm -i --nodeps fahclient-7.6.9-1.x86_64.rpm #rpm -i --nodeps fahcontrol-7.6.9-1.noarch.rpm #rpm -i --nodeps fahviewer-7.6.9-1.x86_64.rpm
after installation
# /etc/init.d/FAHClient status fahclient is running with PID 25624
initially FAHControl script fail to start because gtk python module is missing
$ /usr/bin/FAHControl Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/FAHControl", line 25, in <module> from fah import FAHControl, load_fahcontrol_db File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/fah/__init__.py", line 25, in <module> import util File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/fah/util/__init__.py", line 26, in <module> import gtk ImportError: No module named gtk
add gtk python module for FAHControl to work
# yum install pygtk2
then FAHControl python script might complain about missing python
$ /usr/bin/FAHControl bash: /usr/bin/FAHControl : /usr/bin/python : mauvais interpréteur: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
you can force it to your installed version by editing the 1st line of the script , here /usr/bin/python2.7 (installed aside pyhton3 also on centos 8 )
# head -1 /usr/bin/FAHControl #!/usr/bin/python2.7
config is stored in /etc/fahclient/config.xml
because we installed it with –nodeps !
$ FAHViewer FAHViewer: error while loading shared libraries: libglut.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
the add freeglut for FAHviewer
# yum install freeglut
when everything Runs
[root@localhost ~]# ps auwx | grep FAH root 25624 0.0 0.0 99060 3872 ? Ssl 13:03 0:00 /usr/bin/FAHClient /etc/fahclient/config.xml --run-as fahclient --pid-file=/var/run/fahclient.pid --daemon fahclie+ 25626 0.3 0.2 778184 44640 ? Sl 13:03 0:05 /usr/bin/FAHClient --child /etc/fahclient/config.xml --run-as fahclient --pid-file=/var/run/fahclient.pid --daemon fahclie+ 25635 0.0 0.0 86720 1636 ? SNl 13:03 0:00 /usr/bin/FAHCoreWrapper /var/lib/fahclient/cores/cores.foldingathome.org/v7/lin/64bit/avx/Core_a7.fah/FahCore_a7 -dir 00 -suffix 01 -version 706 -lifeline 25626 -checkpoint 15 -np 3 jproc 25655 1.3 0.3 899548 57408 pts/12 Sl+ 13:03 0:22 /usr/bin/python2.7 /usr/bin/FAHControl
a lot is stored here
# ls -ltr /var/lib/fahclient/ total 100 drwxrwxrwx 3 fahclient root 37 24 avril 18:57 cores -rw-rw-r-- 1 fahclient root 92126 24 avril 18:59 GPUs.txt drwxrwxrwx 2 fahclient root 74 25 avril 13:01 configs drwxrwxrwx 2 fahclient root 130 25 avril 13:03 logs drwxrwxrwx 3 fahclient root 58 25 avril 13:03 work -rw-r--r-- 1 fahclient root 7786 25 avril 13:30 log.txt
# tail -f /var/lib/fahclient/log.txt 11:06:31:WU00:FS00:0xa7:Completed 55000 out of 500000 steps (11%) 11:13:12:WU00:FS00:0xa7:Completed 60000 out of 500000 steps (12%) 11:19:19:WU00:FS00:0xa7:Completed 65000 out of 500000 steps (13%) 11:25:02:WU00:FS00:0xa7:Completed 70000 out of 500000 steps (14%) 11:30:39:WU00:FS00:0xa7:Completed 75000 out of 500000 steps (15%)