Posts by dgnuff

1) Message boards : Questions and problems : running boinc.exe from registry without window (Message 23925)
Posted 26 Mar 2009 by dgnuff
Post:
I'm doing *exactly* what it appears you want to do:

I start boinc.exe from a "startup" shortcut, using the -detach option, so it starts on its own without a window. I can connect to it and administer it just fine using boincmgr, simply by starting boincmgr from its shortcut.

The one notable difference is that I haven't changed the port number, it still uses the default 31416.

Why do you need to change the port number? I've never found a need to use anything other than the default.
2) Message boards : Projects : News on Project Outages (Message 19645)
Posted 20 Aug 2008 by dgnuff
Post:
Has anyone else found Tanpaku to be MIA? One of my systems has a WU that completed OK, but has now gone overdue because it can't communicate with the website.

Likewise, attempts to connect to http://issofty17.is.noda.tus.ac.jp/ with a browser fail, and aiming a telnet client at issofty17.is.noda.tus.ac.jp port 80 yields no connection.
3) Message boards : BOINC client : 5.10.20 win32 Scheduler Weirdness (Message 16861)
Posted 25 Apr 2008 by dgnuff
Post:
Steps to reproduce:

Attach to these 5 projects:

Rosetta@Home
Tanpaku
Spinhenge
boincsimap
malariacontrol

Set priorities as follows:

Rosetta 1800
All others 50

Leave it cook for a week or two.

Note that Malaria is doing work about four times faster than Spinhenge and Tanpaku.

I've got a total of six machines here using this setup, all are suffering this problem.

Incidentally, what are the expected maxima and minima for LTD values? I routinely see them in the hundreds of thousands or even millions on systems that have been running this setup for extended timeframes.
4) Message boards : BOINC Manager : Comments as a new user (Message 856)
Posted 8 Nov 2005 by dgnuff
Post:
I'd like to run LHC@home with about 10% share. However, it refuses to D/L work unless it's north of about 50%, the exact complaint is something to the effect that "I'm not going to D/L work because at 10% you won't be able to complete it in time."

This complaint is (of course) complete rubbish, since as I post this (snip)

Do you begin to see the problem.


Not going to argue the preferences issue, but on the above... No, I don't see the problem. You are trying to micromanage the resource share and say that "TODAY I want you to do LHC 10% of the time" - and BOINC won't do that. However, if you left it alone, the LTD would grow for LHC, and when it got high enough, it would download work. Over the LONG TERM, the project would get 10% of your resources - just as you told it to do.


The whole point is that I DON'T want to micromanage the resource share. I want to tell my system to do LHC 10% of the time. I'd like nothing better than to set it and forget it.

The problem is that because of quirks in BOINC's behavior, anything less than (empirically) 35% for LHC is effectively 0%.

Let me describe the problem again.

I WANT LHC to be 10%.

If I set LHC to 10% it refuses to D/L work.

To force LHC to D/L work, I have to "micromanage" the resource share.

Do you now see the problem?
5) Message boards : BOINC Manager : Comments as a new user (Message 847)
Posted 8 Nov 2005 by dgnuff
Post:

trying to "co-host" or rather "link" projects, would be far too complicated to be worth it. how often does someone need to change their resouce shares anyway?


Since the settings seem to be incredibly pooched on a couple of projects, I need to hit the resource share on a fairly regular basis. I'd like to run LHC@home with about 10% share. However, it refuses to D/L work unless it's north of about 50%, the exact complaint is something to the effect that "I'm not going to D/L work because at 10% you won't be able to complete it in time."

This complaint is (of course) complete rubbish, since as I post this, the work that I did D/L has an expiration date of Sat 12 Nov (i.e. 5 days from now), and it's taken about an hour to do 16% of the work. Doing a quick number crunch, we get:

16% work in an hour means 6 hours to finish.
If the cpu is on it 10% of the time, that equates to 60 hours, or 2.5 days, meaning I could get about 2 WU done before expiration.

Do you begin to see the problem.

Same thing with disk settings. I have a system with about 75 MB of free disk space (it's an old box with 2K on it, 300 MB HD IIRC). Boinc simply WILL NOT D/L work to this system, claiming "there's not enough disk space". Never mind the fact that the entire contents of the BOINC folder on my desktop system is a whopping 29 Mb. What I actually do to D/L work, is to copy the folder to my desktop, kill the installed version of Boinc, fire up the version in the copied folder, D/L work, and then reverse the process.

Why is this shenanigans necessary, when the empirical evidence clearly shows that 75MB is plenty enough to D/L and run Boinc WU's from the sites I'm visiting? Granted, the Climate prediction site is not an option, it's known to have big WU's. But that's still not an excuse for the ones that are smaller.


also you don't need to fiddle with xml files to change venues at all, it can be set per host, in the hosts area of "my account" (officially "view computers"), just view the host that you want to change, go to the bottom of the page, and change it there


I suppose the idea of having a setting under "Options" called "Host" Is just way too confusing to all those 30+ host power users, right?

The logic that since this is a host specific setting, we set it on (gasp) the host, must be in some way be unsound. I just can't quite see where.

</sarcasm>

-- Edit -- Minor clarification --
6) Message boards : BOINC Manager : How precisely do I set a venue and make it stick. (Message 844)
Posted 8 Nov 2005 by dgnuff
Post:
I also have this problem - can there be a function in the manager of "set host venue"? (maybe it is there, but I can't find it, and editing the xml doesn't always seem to work, as described...)


Un-smeggin'-believable.

I will admit one thing about the Boinc team. They really have taken to the idea of setting stuff on the web with about the same tenacity as a pitbull.

That being said, go to any of the web sites you are registered with, view your account, hit the view computers link, select the computer by it's link on the left, scroll to the bottom, and there is where you set it.

Arthur Dent's quote from the Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy comes to mind:

"I finally found them in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, in a basement, in a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door saying `Beware of the leopard'. You didn't exactly go out of your way to make them easy to find."
7) Message boards : BOINC Manager : How precisely do I set a venue and make it stick. (Message 841)
Posted 8 Nov 2005 by dgnuff
Post:


shows the problem. I manually edit the xml files and set every instance of host_venue to "work". Fire up Boinc, and as the first highlighted line shows, all is well and good.

I then update LHC@home, where I've carefully set up preferences for all locations (including work), but lo-and-behold, Boinc decides that it hates being at work, and wants to go home - see the second highlighted section of text.

So, what do I have to do to explain to Boinc that it should not try to second guess me, and that it should stay with the work configuration?

Thanks.
8) Message boards : BOINC Manager : Comments as a new user (Message 798)
Posted 4 Nov 2005 by dgnuff
Post:
You know what I'd do?
Create a local config screen. Make sure it has two extra items:
Firstly a checkbox & edit field (default unchecked and empty) that optionally allow you to save the config to the web.
Secondly a dropdown list that can optionally allow you to load the config from a previously saved setting.


this seems like it will just complicate things even further, and those that understand web-based self-propogating prefs will have to re-learn how the system works to properly understand how to set things. However i'm sure some half-way point could be reached.


If we're willing to make one change to what I originally proposed, it can continue to work as is for your 30+ host users. You maintain the web interface, and if no configuration is selected locally use the web one.

So current idea becomes basically "use web config if it's there, otherwise use local if it exists, otherwise fall back to default settings."

A fundamental of good design is that you don't surprise the user. This means that it is a given that the current system for your 30+ host users must continue to function. The problem is that the current system DOES surprise casual users, because I think we all agree that the current web based config setup is extremely unusual. Take a look at every other program you have installed on your machine, and find one that does not have local access to configuration setting.

Let's see what happens in both cases, given what I'm suggesting.

30+ host user: Head for web, he knows that's where he sets options. Set them up. Install and go. Machines automatically slurp down the web options if they're there. Since they are, it's business as usual.

Joe User: Install and run. No options are set on the web. Assuming the existance of intelligent defaults, program runs with no further interaction. If something DOES need tweaking, you can bet the first place they'll look is under the Options menu of Boincmgr.

Who loses in this scenario?
9) Message boards : BOINC Manager : Comments as a new user (Message 771)
Posted 1 Nov 2005 by dgnuff
Post:

As far as i know it's something around 80% of people have only 1 host, but if you compare the total number of hosts in the "1 host/user" group and "2+ hosts/user" group it's a lot closer to 50% (something like 40% of hosts are part of the "2+ hosts/user" group) and this represents a large majority of crunching power (see point further below)


Those numbers don't surprise me in the least. You do realise that this means that for 80% of your users, you just made BOINC unnecessarily confusing.

The "set locally and transfer to the web" really seems the best way to go. Taking this a step further, the transfer to the web needs to be an option.

I'm a refugee from Find-a-Drug, so when that closes down Dec 16, I'll be bringing four machines over to BOINC (maybe more). However, only two of these systems will share config data. My desktop at home and my wife's will share settings, but my notebook and my work system must necessarily use different configs. Why do I even need to have those two configs on the web?


I just feel that by having them as part of the app and not web based (and so won't propogate to all hosts) it is not worth the hastle for the people for multiple computers comapred to the slight increase in conviencince for a single-host user ... as most of the big crunchers (who do a vast majority of the work for projects) have *lots* of computers, and i'm sure many would be put off by app only prefs (imagine having to update 30-40 computers!!)


Right. 30-40 host users really need the web setup. However those folks are generally sufficiently well acquainted with the project that they know where to go to set web settings.

You know what I'd do?

Create a local config screen. Make sure it has two extra items:

Firstly a checkbox & edit field (default unchecked and empty) that optionally allow you to save the config to the web.

Secondly a dropdown list that can optionally allow you to load the config from a previously saved setting.

If you really care that much about the 30-40 host users, and don't care about the single computer users, then say so. Make it clear that BOINC is targetted at people who can bring large farms of systems online, so that single computer people who don't have enough "crunch power" to be considered worthwhile will know to look elsewhere.

You may not like my last statement, but sadly, that's the impression you create.



Copyright © 2024 University of California.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.