System requirements

From BOINC

Your computer must satisfy the following requirements to run BOINC. BOINC-based projects may have additional requirements.

Windows

  • Hardware
    • Pentium 233 MHz (Recommended: Pentium 500 MHz or greater)
    • 64 MB RAM (Recommended: 128 MB RAM or greater)
    • 20 MB disk space
  • Permissions
    • You must have administrator privileges to install BOINC.
  • Nvidia Support
    • You must have driver version 185.85 or better installed in order to use your GPU.
  • AMD Support
    • You must have driver version 8.12 or better installed in order to use your GPU.

Mac

  • Operating system
    • Mac OS X 10.4.0 and later
  • Hardware
    • Macintosh computer with an Intel x86 or PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
    • 128 MB RAM (Recommended: 256 MB RAM or greater)
    • 200 MB disk space

Linux

  • Operating system
    • Linux kernel 2.2.14 or higher
    • glibc 2.3.2 or higher
    • BOINC uses file locking. If you run BOINC in an NFS-mounted directory, make sure the NFS lock daemon is working.
  • For BOINC Manager:
    • XFree86-3.3.6 or higher
    • gtk+2.0 or higher
  • For application graphics:
    • Accelerated OpenGL support in your X server (version of OpenGL and graphics hardware required depends on the project).
  • Hardware
    • Pentium 500 MHz or greater
    • 64 MB RAM
    • 50 MB disk space

Bi-arch (32+64) distro notes

If you attach to a project with only 32-bit Linux applications, BOINC will try to run them.

For application graphics to work, you may need to install the 32-bit libglut library (or copy from elsewhere) into the 32-bit library directory, usually /usr/lib, but depending on distribution may also be /usr/lib32.

If the applications still get errors, find the executable in the projects directory and run ldd on it to see which libraries are missing.

openSUSE

Each 32-bit library is in its own package. Installing glibc-32bit will probably suffice for (non-graphical) programs. For programs with graphical output with or without GLUT, install freeglut-32bit; necessary GL and X.org dependencies will be pulled in by the package manager, altogether satisfying the program's dependencies. Run ldd on the program for details about missing libraries and post-install them.

See also