I have been running my first install of linux for about 2 hours now and am trying to install BOINC onto my system so that it will run on startup and run as the screen saver. I am also using GNOME

I did download boinc and got it runnig while I was still logged in as root, so now when I am in my normal user mode I don't find boinc. While I was running boinc under root, I was not able to see the graphics and I could not figure out how to run it without actually starting it in a window.

I have found a bunch of information but I can't figure out what I am supposed to do when or where.

Can someone please post what I need to do to install boinc so that it will start when I log in and run in the background and act as my screen saver.

Thanks for your time

Jim

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I have been running my first install of linux for about 2 hours now and am trying to install BOINC onto my system so that it will run on startup and run as the screen saver. I am also using GNOME

Can you please describe, how you have setup it to run it as "screensaver".

I did download boinc and got it runnig while I was still logged in as root, so now when I am in my normal user mode I don't find boinc. While I was running boinc under root, I was not able to see the graphics and I could not figure out how to run it without actually starting it in a window.

Do you mean, you see seti graphics withing the boinc manager ?
Also I recommend you, to let the boinc client not to run as root. Best practice is to let it run as a seperate user.

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I have been running my first install of linux for about 2 hours now and am trying to install BOINC onto my system so that it will run on startup and run as the screen saver. I am also using GNOME

Can you please describe, how you have setup it to run it as "screensaver".

I havent down loaded it yet, and I don't know how to get it to show its graphics for my screen saver

I did download boinc and got it runnig while I was still logged in as root, so now when I am in my normal user mode I don't find boinc. While I was running boinc under root, I was not able to see the graphics and I could not figure out how to run it without actually starting it in a window.

Do you mean, you see seti graphics withing the boinc manager ?
Also I recommend you, to let the boinc client not to run as root. Best practice is to let it run as a seperate user.

No, I could not see the graphics while in BOINC manager.

What I am trying to attain is what I am used to on Windslow systems. When I start the system it automatically starts BOINC and uses the seti graphics as my screen saver.

When I was logged on as root I installed BOINC and was able to run it by starting it from the GUI, but it was just another program in the tray at the bottom of the screen and it did not show any graphics. When I logged out as root, and logged in under my user name, I could not find the BOINC files I had downloaded under root. I don't want to run it as root, I just want to run it invisibly while I am on the system.

I am still on the learning curve for linux, and I forget things like being logged in as different users make a big difference.

Thanks

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No, I could not see the graphics while in BOINC manager.

What I am trying to attain is what I am used to on Windslow systems. When I start the system it automatically starts BOINC and uses the seti graphics as my screen saver.

There is no screensaver available for Linux, like you know it as from windows or MacOS.

When I was logged on as root I installed BOINC and was able to run it by starting it from the GUI, but it was just another program in the tray at the bottom of the screen and it did not show any graphics. When I logged out as root, and logged in under my user name, I could not find the BOINC files I had downloaded under root. I don't want to run it as root, I just want to run it invisibly while I am on the system.

Best way is to find the boinc directory (as root) and move it into a seperate directory for your user under which boinc runs and change the owner to the user you wan't to let run it.
Now login as user, and make the links for the boincmanager and the boinc client on the desktop (or whatever).

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To add to what Dotsch has already said...

We've installed boinc on several Debian systems, and based on how the machine's owners wanted things to run, we used a couple different approaches.

In all cases, boinc was not installed as root. Whether this is a valid security issue or not is open for debate.

A user named "boincuser" was created. That user then logged in and ran the boinc installer. This created a BOINC directory in boincuser's home diectory with the boinc core client installed there. (/home/boincuser/BOINC)

As for starting boinc, there were 3 different ways it was requested to be done. Two of them involved starting boinc at bootup or reboot. The third way was to run boinc only when 'boincuser' was logged on.

Method 1: Use the @reboot command in boincuser's crontab
(@reboot /home/boincuser/BOINC/boinc)
(Runs boinc as boincuser at system bootup or reboot)

Method 2: A start/stop script in /etc/init.d
(A copy of the script is here).
(This runs boinc at system startup as the user specified in the script. Requires a manual "boinc stop" to kill boinc)

Method 3: Start boinc when boincuser logs in, kill boinc when boincuser logs out.
Commands to launch boinc were placed in /home/boincuser/.bashrc
Commands to kill boinc were placed in /home/boincuser/.bash_logout

(This only works correctly when boincuser logs in via a login shell, some additional issues may arise when using an X-windows login manager. When logging in and out strictly from a console prompt, this method seems to work ok.)