Google Toolbar Compute Linux "trick" for powder2glass

Google Compute does not run outa-the-box on Linux, but it is fairly easy to get it to work. The basic problem is that while the Folding@Home folks support Linux, Google does not, so if you specify team #446 (Google), it ignores your OS and downloads a Windoze "core" executable which fails to run on Linux. So ... in order to run on Linux (and contribute to powder2glass! ;-) do the following - note no need to be root or any special privileges:

• Create a directory where you are going to download/run everything and do all of the below in that directory.
• Download the Linux "console" EXE from the Folding Home Site - http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/download.html
• Download the "core.exe" files - http://www.stanford.edu/~pande/Linux/x86/
• Uncompress these (using bzip2 -d) and then rename as Fah*. I.e. Core_65.exe.bz becomes FahCore_65.exe This is the "hack" ... you are "pre-downloading" the "core executables" so it won't try to do it for you, and then get the Windoze executable. Google will hopefully fix this someday.
• Run that "console" EXE and use team=446 and username=powder2glass when it asks you in the configuration steps and you are off to the races contributing to powder2glass!
• Think about setting up an "init" script so it is auto-restarted on reboot.

BTW, if the "core executables" are ever changed, you would need to download a new one, but this is infrequent.


2004_04_23 Update: They may have fixed some of these issue - take a look at this lengthy thread about an FAH Installer for Linux.

Main powder2glass Google Toolbar Compute Page