Installing Folding@home

Hey all,

Well, this is not a real long tutorial and it's not hard, but there's a good amount that can be learned from it. Also, Folding@Home is a great tool made by Stanford University to research cell growth and development, and help to better understand the way cells behave. This can lead to cures for disease and other health topics. Well, now that we know what Folding@Home is, let's install the program and get it running. Note that this is written as simply as possible and contains very basic information that more experienced users can skip.

Download & Installation

First, we need to download the program. The download page can be found at...
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download

Now look for the Linux versions of the program, which should be the first two available. I personally use the second (Linux (x86-64 bit, only) SMP client console version 6.02 beta1) because I'm more familiar with that version, rather than the executable. Now, download the SMP Version to your desktop. Once you have downloaded the file, create a folder on your desktop and call it Folding@Home. Now move the downloaded file into this folder simply by dragging the file over the folder and releasing the left-click button.


Now that you have the folder created, open up a terminal and login as root. If you are not familiar with this, you simply have to type su into the terminal and then enter the root password. To find your terminal, click on the Computer menu on the bottom left of your screen, and then click the More Applications button. Then search terminal in the search field, and click on the program that looks like a winking TV Screen. Once you've completed this, cd into the folder. (Each line below is a new command)

su
cd Desktop/Folding@Home

Now we have to remove the files from the package. To do this, we have to run the tar command. For this, I'm going to use the version I currently have. Note: Replace the package name in the command below with the name of your package. So, now run the follow command with your own package name.

tar xzvf FAH6.02beta1-Linux.tgz

Now, there should be two files that were extracted:

• mpiexec
• fah6

Next, we need to run the fah6 file. To do this, run the following command.

./fah6

Now, from here, the following steps pertain to configuring Folding@Home. If you are already familiar with Folding@Home, you can simply skip to the last step. If you are not familiar with Folding@Home, there's nothing to worry about, the following steps will guide you in how to configure your program.

Okay, the first step you are prompted to enter a username. For this, enter a name that the work will be credited. Next, you will be asked to enter a team number: if you do not have a team number, simply hit the enter button, and this is submit the default number of 0. For the passkey, hit the enter button again to enter no number. Enter to submit the default of no before asking to fetch/send work. Enter no for the proxy and enter normal for the next prompt. Enter the default when asked to changed advanced options. Congratulations! You have successfully installed Folding@Home.

Okay, now we have to delete the package in the Folding@Home folder. to do this, run this command...

rm -r FAH6.02beta1-Linux.tgz[/i]

Once again, make sure to enter the name of your package. It may not be the one above.


Running Folding@Home

Running Folding@Home is quiet simple. It is a two step process which includes getting into the folder as a root user and then starting the program. To do this, run the following command in a new terminal (each line is a new command)...

su
cd Desktop/Folding@Home
./fah6

Well, that's it! You've now installed Folding@Home and can run the program. Note: If you close the terminal window, Folding@Home will automatically close. If you have any problems, questions or even just comments, feel free to send me a Personal Message. I'll be glad to help! In advance, I would like to apologize for any typos; I have not completely reread the post.

Nice tute. However I would never run a program like this as root. I wouldn't even run it in my account. I don't want this program to ever have access to my files or my devices. It isn't designed to do anything untoward like that but I want to make sure of this. I created a separate account to run it in, and login on a VT to access this account.

I see what your saying.

So far, after about a year or so of using F@H with Windows and/or Linux, I haven't had any security problems.

But if anyone is uncomfortable with running the program as root, Ken_yap's method would be the best alternative.