Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing

Recently we published Introduction to BOINC which said that older computers could be useful for processing Berkeley Open Infrastructure For Network Computing, BOINC, work units. These computers, retrofitted with Linux instead of Windows can contribute to the public good by looking for pulsars in outer space, searching for life on other planets, studying protein folding, finding new prime numbers and so forth. Indeed, Linux User and Developer Magazine from the UK devoted a cover story to BOINC some years ago. They called BOINC responsible peer to peer networking, as contrasted with irresponsible peer to peer networking which is associated with theft of copyrighted music, etc.

When I was in high school General Dougles MacArthur appeared before a joint session of Congress. MacArthur had just been fired by President Truman over the issue of supremacy of civilian authority over military leaders.

MacArthur concluded an emotional presentation by recalling a song they used to sing at West Point.

For months afterward Old Soldiers Never Die, They Just Fade Away was a hit song.

How does this apply to BOINC? Well I happen to have two IBM ThinkPad 770Zs. They are Pentium II machines with 320MB of ram, they run at 366MHz and their operating system is Slackware version 10.2. One of them processes Einstein at Home work units. The typical work unit will take about five days to complete on a 770Z. The cycle is get a work unit – process it – upload the result – get another work unit. The objective is to run the wheels off until the machine dies of old age or fatigue.

The other 770Z processes Prime Grid work units. This BOINC project looks for new prime numbers of the form K*B^N+/-1 and B^N+/-K and other kinds of prime numbers.

Do I have any idea what these number forms mean? Well, frankly no I do not. I do know that prime numbers are used in computer security and for other useful purposes. So that is the idea behind BOINC. The volunteers who contribute unused CPU cycles are not required to know the science involved. They just need to be willing to help out. Frankly I think this is a better use of old computers then having them thrown in land fills.

Posted by The GNUinator

Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing

Use the idle time on your computer (Windows, Mac, or Linux) to cure diseases, study global warming, discover pulsars, and do many other types of scientific research. It’s safe, secure, and easy:

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well yes downloading and installing the BOINC client software is simple. There is more to this than you might think.

For one thing, this can get competitive really quick. There are teams all over the world vying to produce more completed BOINC work units than any other team. For another, one may participate in multiple BOINC projects at once.

In addition, participation in BOINC projects has implications for the use of old computers. I define old computers as computers which originally shipped with some version of Windows. From time to time Microsoft announces End of Life for Windows versions such as Windows 98 for example.

What happens to a computer with an old no longer supported version of Windows? Computer professionals have struggled with this question for years. It has been estimated that only 22% of discarded computers are disposed of properly. Too many of them end up in landfills where they harm the environment.

One answer I think, is to put them in strong hands and set them to work producing BOINC work units.

When I say strong hands I mean blow Windows off the hard drive and install some Linux distribution instead. I do not mean this as an anti-Microsoft rant. Consider this. Older versions of Windows were never too secure so they are not very safe on the Internet. After End of Life announcement the third party addons like Zone Alarm and AdAware stop being supported as well. These old computers lack the horsepower to run a newer version of Windows. That is just a fact. But these old computers will run Linux.
Slackware is one Linux distribution which works well with older hardware.

You may have heard of SETI@home, that is, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligience. This is the original project in which the University of California asked for the public’s help to perform calculations needed in the search for life on other planets. Hundreds of thousands of people responded worldwide. Years later the university decided to scrap the original SETI@home client software and to replace it with BOINC client software which could be used to support network computing on a variety of scientific projects.

Today one such effort is the BBC Climate Prediction project where users run thousands of simulations to see what is the effect of small changes in sulphur or carbon dioxide.

This is an ambitious project which requires much dedication as a single climate prediction model can run on your computer for months. In this case an obsolete computer will not do – you need something with more horsepower. However, old computers can still do lots of good things. I have, for example Pentium III computers which produce Einstein at home work units. These look for pulsars in space.

Why is this post categorized as ‘the press always gets it wrong’? Well, you might remember that CNN produced a special report asking ‘is anyone out there?’ … an intriguing question. The report focused on the SETI Institute. The executive director was interviewed and SETI raw data collection was shown. What was not discussed was SETI@home where thousands of regular computer users donate unused CPU cycles to process the raw data at no cost to the SETI Institute or the American taxpayers. Dan Brown (The DaVinci Code, etc) described SETI as a government boondoggle. That is his opinion, but he didn’t say a thing about SETI@home.

Posted by The GNUinator

ThinkPad T30

I bought a used ThinkPad T30 on eBay. It did not have the maximum memory (1024MB) so I upgraded. Some months later the computer reported that it had 512MB of memory.

What happened? One of the slots had stopped working. Turns out that this is a known problem in ThinkPad T30s and there is a fix scary but effective. I found out by visiting ThinkPad Community ForumBill Morrow’s ThinkPad Community Forum and searching the archives. You use a soldering pencil to reflow the solder around the ram socket pins. Fortunately there is a discussion of this on the site.

I did it and it worked. In linux go to the shell or open an xterm and type
cat /proc/meminfo
Posted by The GNUinator