Subject: Re: SETI/BOINC Question.
From: Patrick Vervoorn
Date: 06/08/2008, 09:57
Newsgroups: alt.sci.seti

In article <4898e1ad@news2.actrix.gen.nz>,
~misfit~ <misfit61nz@hooya.com.au> wrote:
Somewhere on teh intarweb "Patrick Vervoorn" typed:

Hi Patrick.

Hey Shaun,

So how do you recognize the Astropulse WUs? I have seen WUs which
use/need client version 5.28 to process (where it used to be 5.27),
but nothing specific about 'Astropulse'.

Astropulse WUs are prefixed by "ap_", have lots longer file names and have 
run times listed that are approximately 5 x that of 'normal' WUs. Also, 
under the "Application" column in Task Manager it shows Astropulse 3.45 
instead of SETI@home Enhanced 5.27. (Astroplulse 3.45.exe is downloaded when 
you get the first Astropulse WU.)

Aha, haven't spotted anything like that, even on machines which are 
clearly capable of processing these WUs.

(Keep in mind I am running optimized Set clients, so perhaps BOINC
doesn't accept/request Astropulse units because of that.)

Hmmm, I remember seeing something that might have been about that on the 
Astropulse page (linked from SETI@home home page). I think you have to 
download a new file?

From: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ap_faq.php

"If you are using an optimised application then you will need to replace or 
modify the app_info.xml file.
An app_info.xml file will be made available here."

However, I don't think that the file is there yet. I don't see a link to it.

Nope, I don't see anything either. Also nothing from the site I downloaded 
these optimized binaries from (the 'lunatics' site from the third-party 
list).

On another note: Anyone tried installing the new 6.2.14 (or something
like that) of BOINC?

I'm using 6.2.12 which was listed as 'beta' when I downloaded it a couple 
weeks ago. I've had no problems with it.

I did install 6.3.x on a Linux machine of mine a while ago, but that was 
beta then.

I installed it without problems on my Linux
machines, but when installing it on a Windows box, I noticed a new
question in the dialog box: it wants two directories now: 1 for BOINC
itself, 1 for data. However, the defaults do not place the 'Data'
directory inside the BOINC directory, but somewhere else.

And, when setting the data directory to the BOINC directory, the
installer complains one cannot set these the same (they were
identical on 5.10.45!).

I set my BOINC directory to my programmes partition and the data directory 
to my data drive. I liked having the option, it means my programmes 
partition doesn't get too fragmented over time with BOINC constantly 
writing/deleting data.

I have programs and data mixed. ;)

Fearing I might lose all WUs in progress, I haven't installed it yet.
Anyone know the deal on this? What should I pick, and can I move the
Seti@Home WUs across to the new dir? Or should I do something else
first?

Hard to know for sure, I installed 6.2.12 after not running BOINC for a 
while. However, I seem to remember seeing a couple of long-expired WUs in 
BOINC task manager when I started it so maybe it moved them. If I were you 
I'd set my preferences to 0 / 0 days a while before you install it, just in 
case. Even worst case scenario is only losing the WUs that the client is 
currently working on as downloaded but unprocessed units haven't actually 
cost you any CPU time..

I'll probably backup the directory, and just try it on one of my slower 
Windows-based machines to see what happens. I must say I find this change 
in the installer a bit confusing at best; a notice about the current 
location of the data, and perhaps explicitly having it mention that data 
will or will not be moved, would've been nice...

Regards, Patrick.