There are several ways to install BOINC on Linux:

If you're already using a package manager like Flatpak, you can use it to install BOINC. If not, we recommend using the standard package manager of your Linux distro (apt, yum, or zypper).

Standard package

Get instructions using this form:

Flatpack

Download BOINC from flathub.

Snap

Coming soon.

GNU Guix

Download BOINC from Guix. To install the stable version of BOINC on Ubuntu 22.04:

sudo curl -fsSL https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/linux/stable/$(lsb_release -cs)/boinc.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/boinc.gpg
sudo echo deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/boinc.gpg] https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/linux/stable/$(lsb_release -cs) $(lsb_release -cs) main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/boinc.list > /dev/null
sudo apt update
sudo apt install boinc-client boinc-manager

On headless systems, omit 'boinc-manager'. On such systems, the BOINC client can be controlled either using boinccmd, or using a remote GUI.

Details on the installer are here.

GPU computing

If the system has a GPU, it may be usable by BOINC projects that have GPU-enabled apps. On some systems you may need to install GPU drivers that support this.

Check the BOINC client's output on startup. It should detect your GPU (NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel) using OpenCL, and NVIDIA GPUs should also be detected using CUDA. If not, check whether updated drivers are available for your GPU type and Linux distro. In general, vendor-supplied drivers may be preferable to open-source drivers.

Configuration

You must tell BOINC which science projects to compute for. The recommended way is to use Science United, where you choose science areas rather than individual projects.

• Create an account on Science United.
• Attach this computer to the Science United account.

You can configure BOINC to limit its computing, memory usage, and disk usage. Do this using the BOINC Manager (Options / Computing Preferences) or the Computing Preferences form on the Science United website.

Uninstall

To remove BOINC:

sudo apt remove boinc-client boinc-manager