how to run boinc on chromeOS

I have a bunch of Chromebases laying around. To put them to good use i decided to try and run boinc on them.

Prerequisites

First step was to start the chromebook in developer mode. The LGs i have, come with a dedicated button to do so.
To find out how to turn on developer mode on your device, go to the chrome wiki page and follow the link to your device in that table.

installing cruton

Next step is to installl crouton:

1. Download crouton (https://goo.gl/fd3zc)
2. open a shell (Ctrl+Alt+T and the type shell and enter)
3. sh ~/Downloads/crouton -t cli-extra (this will install an ubuntu cli)
4. type startclito enter the chroot.

running boinc

once you are in your chroot environment, you can install boinc.

sudo apt install boinc

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The boinc-client service will not be started because it is not possible to start systemctl services from a chroot.
There are ways around it, and i might get to trying it out myself, but for now i go with running boinc from the cli with boinc & and the detach it with ctrl-z, and put it in the background simply by typing bg.

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get crunching

now that boinc is running, you can boinccmd to connect to an acount manager. I am a big fan of gridcoin and i'm already mining on the pool so i will use that.

boinccmd --join_acct_mgr https://grcpool.com USERNAME PASSWORD

As i somtimes had some Problems of boinc not downloading tasks, i set the network mode to always

boinccmd --set_network_mode always

now you can assign a project grcpool.com to the device. To refresh the tasks etc. Just rejoin the account manager again:

boinccmd --join_acct_mgr https://grcpool.com USERNAME PASSWORD

after downloding your chrome device should start crunching ;-) you can check it with

boinccmd --get_tasks

graphical boinc-manager

after adding the IP of your Desktop machine to remote_hosts.cfg ...

sudo nano /var/lib/boinc-client/remote_hosts.cfg

enter IP and the ctrl-o enter ctrl-x and restarting boinc,

you can even attach remotely to the machine and manage it from there...

preventing power savings mode

now just run croutonpowerd -i to prevent chromeos to switch to power savings mode.

Currently i'm cruching for Universe@Home. Let's see how much gridcoin i can generate with this setup. I will post an update to this after the magnitude ramp up...