Cannot install from unsigned repo

[SJC_Steve]

Trying to install the latest FAHClient, version 7.6.21. on Ubuntu 20.04

Install hangs with message "Cannot install from unsigned repo"

Easy fix?

Thanks,
Steve

[SJC_Steve]

I finally was able to install the Viewer and Client but the Control still fails to install.

I had to install manually using the dpkg command, which installed with broken and missing dependencies. I then had to fix the broken and obsolete dependencies. The only option for the Control was to uninstall it as I guess it's too broken to use with Ubuntu 20.04 LTE.

I might suggest that the builders of these modules try to install them on modern Ubuntu versions before releasing them or at least provide work arounds to your volunteer crunches so that each donor doesn't have to go through this process.

Thanks,
Steve

[Neil-B]

There ard a number of workarounds detailed in the forums and numerous explanations as to the cause .. im on phone at the moment but when I have full access I'll search out some links and post them

[Gnomuz]

As for FAHControl, the current version requires python2/Gtk2, which are deprecated and no longer present in the ubuntu repos since 19.04. There are ways to force thier installation, but not reallu recommended...
There are unofficial versions of FAHControl which have been updated for pyhton3 /Gtk3. This pull works for me under Ubuntu 20.04.2 : https://github.com/FoldingAtHome/fah-control/pull/70
Maybe you can try

[SJC_Steve]

As for FAHControl, the current version requires python2/Gtk2, which are deprecated and no longer present in the ubuntu repos since 19.04. There are ways to force thier installation, but not reallu recommended...
There are unofficial versions of FAHControl which have been updated for pyhton3 /Gtk3. This pull works for me under Ubuntu 20.04.2 : https://github.com/FoldingAtHome/fah-control/pull/70
Maybe you can try

I'm curious about this project. This isn't a criticism as I'm new to FaH and trying to get a sense of what's going on. Ubuntu 19.04 came out nearly two years ago yet the FaH Client hasn't been updated to include the basic ability to load and run on a modern Ubuntu OS, with the Control module being so out of date as to fail even with simple workarounds. Is it COVID or something else causing the applications to be so far out of date?

Thanks and Regards,
Steve

[Neil-B]

Partly covid and partly the type/history of FaH.

Short version - FaH is academic driven and funding has only been available for one dev who also looks after the server code as well as the client/viewer/control ... The viewer/control software doesn't actually impact the throughput of science and there have been workarounds so has had a lower priority than client and server code updates ... Efforts were underway for a new client (which may have incorporated the updates for latest OSs) prior to covid ... Covid changed both the scale and nature of the challenge and significantly increase the folding pool with knock on impacts for server infrastructure etc. ... There is an advert out for 2nd dev so with a bit of luck things may move forward ... There have however been big leaps forward on folding cores and client during this period just not in sorting out updates for latest OSs

btw I'm simply a folder and the above is my naive understanding of the challenges.

[Joe_H]

Slightly longer version of the history of the client software:

Originally the client and server code was done by the researchers themselves, possibly getting assists from students in related fields such as math and computer science. The code worked, but was hard to maintain. About a dozen years ago the project was able to carve out enough money to hire a single professional developer. His assignments were first the client, that is the beginning of version 7 of the client, and code for the work and assignment servers was given to him after that.

(Note - it is not easy to get grant money for hiring professional software developers, many sources want their research grants restricted to funding the researchers and their research only.)

Up until a few years ago Folding@home was run out of Dr Pande's lab at Stanford, and known as the Pande Group. Some labs at other locations also participated with their own work servers, many with former grad students and post-doc's from the Pande Lab. When Dr Pande took a job elsewhere in 2015, he continued supervising his lab for a few years longer as his grad students finished up their research and degrees. Towards the end of that, he and Dr Bowen were joint directors of the project, and Dr Bowen became the director after this joint period.

As part of the closing up of the Pande Lab, all servers that used to be at Stanford need to be migrated elsewhere. This was about 3 years ago. The previous release of the client, 7.5.1, was completed then. For Ubuntu and other Linux OSs, it was coded to be installable on current releases. For Ubuntu that was 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS was released several months later. The developer's assignments after that were getting work and assignment servers set up elsewhere than Stanford, that included getting the assignment server code to work on a cloud server. Another task was moving the F@h site from a Stanford server to one based in the cloud.

With Stanford and the Pande Lab no longer being participants, the overall structure is now known as the Folding@home Consortium.

During this there was no work done on updating the client software. Starting at some point in 2019 the developer was given the task of making the client and server code open source in preparation for doing a major rewrite of it. Parts are now open source, that includes FAHControl. This work was interrupted by COVID about a year ago. Due to demand, some minor rewriting of the client software was done late last Spring to add the COVID-19 preference and fix some bugs which is where version 7.6 comes from. Support for using ARM and Intel iGPUs has also been added. There was assistance from a number of volunteers, but still just one developer to oversee things. A couple volunteers did work on FAHControl, but a version that works with Python 3 has not yet been packaged into an official release.

I am leaving out much detail, but this basically is why the current client has issues with the most recent releases of Linux. The limited updating of the client has also had issues crop up with the latest macOS releases, but there is a developer who has volunteered assistance in that area over the years. He has assisted in getting the most recent release fixed to run on those OSs.

[SJC_Steve]

Thanks for the short and long histories, it's helpful to have some context.
Regards, Steve

[bruce]

I'm curious about this project. This isn't a criticism as I'm new to FaH and trying to get a sense of what's going on. Ubuntu 19.04 came out nearly two years ago yet the FaH Client hasn't been updated to include the basic ability to load and run on a modern Ubuntu OS, with the Control module being so out of date as to fail even with simple workarounds. Is it COVID or something else causing the applications to be so far out of date?

Additional background:
If you're a Windows user, MS expects you to be happy with a constant upgrade cycle (every week). If you choose to remain on an old version of Windows, your life will not be easy.

If you're a Linux user, you are pretty much either a self-supporting guru or you're in a environment where upgrades are rare and software should NOT be upgraded unnecessarily. (Those assumptions may no longer be as true as they once were.) The words "a modern Ubuntu OS" suggest a different concept.

The FAH Linux client is supposed to be backward compatible with the oldest Long_Term_Support client that anybody still has. Support for a 2-year old release of Linux is not considered a detriment ... on the contrary, it's considered as a benefit by the development "team" (of one) and his managers and in light of the assumptions mentioned above.

[SJC_Steve]

The FAH Linux client is supposed to be backward compatible with the oldest Long_Term_Support client that anybody still has. Support for a 2-year old release of Linux is not considered a detriment ... on the contrary, it's considered as a benefit by the development "team" (of one) and his managers and in light of the assumptions mentioned above.

Background. I recently built a new PC and loaded the current long-term support version, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. I suspect that yes, the latest Client is compatible with older LTS releases just not the current one. I suppose individuals could go back to older releases but that would need to be stated in the install instructions.

Steve