Watch out with Linux Mint 21 "Vanessa"!

[Dirk Broer]

A word of warning: Linux Mint seems to have its own ideas about how to run BOINC.

If you install BOINC 7.18.1 via the Linux Mint repository, or when you upgrade an existing BOINC-crunching Linux Mint 20.3, you are left with a non-working BOINC.

Via the Software Manager you can install the BOINC Manager version 7.20.2, which install itself in a hidden directory of the users HOME folder (in my case: /Home/Dirk/.var/app/edu.berkeley.BOINC)
That BOINC manager claims its data directory to be just /Home/<your username> in the boot up event log, but that is not my main irk.

• It does not recognize earlier BOINC installations,
• sees no installed virtual box,
• sees no Intel IGP (working perfectly in Mint 20.3),
• can't be contacted using BOINC Tasks.

I'll give AMDave's favourite, Manjaro, a try next.

Only problem Manjaro 21.3.7 XFCE gives me so far is setting the date to 08-08-2022 on install and starting to update straight afterwards, while I am unable to set the date to today.
Is it a bug, or is it a security feature? This install broke when I tried to enable my Intel IGP in BOINC and was left with a black screen.
Next install broke because I couldn't connect to a BOINC-Client -everything greyed-out and no indication where BOINC was installed -not in /var/lib/boinc-client/ .....
But all was not for naught: Third try I got rewarded with an OpenCL 3.0 capable IGPU, and I could connect to the projects.

Asrock-J5005-iTX

1 11/23/2022 4:57:01 PM cc_config.xml not found - using defaults
2 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM Starting BOINC client version 7.20.2 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
3 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM This a development version of BOINC and may not function properly
4 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
5 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM Libraries: libcurl/7.86.0 OpenSSL/3.0.7 zlib/1.2.13 brotli/1.0.9 zstd/1.5.2 libidn2/2.3.4 libpsl/0.21.1 (+libidn2/2.3.4) libssh2/1.10.0 nghttp2/1.50.0
6 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM Data directory: /var/lib/boinc
7 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM OpenCL: Intel GPU 0: Intel(R) UHD Graphics 605 [0x3184] (driver version 22.30.23789, device version OpenCL 3.0 NEO, 3277MB, 3277MB available, 115 GFLOPS peak)
8 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM libc: version 2.36
9 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM Host name: Asrock-J5005-iTX
10 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM Processor: 4 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) Silver J5005 CPU @ 1.50GHz [Family 6 Model 122 Stepping 1]
11 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperf
12 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM OS: Linux ManjaroLinux: Manjaro Linux [5.19.17-2-MANJARO|libc 2.36]
13 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM Memory: 15.04 GB physical, 0 bytes virtual
14 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM Disk: 227.88 GB total, 204.82 GB free
15 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM Local time is UTC +1 hours
16 11/23/2022 4:58:04 PM VirtualBox version: 7.0.2r154219