graphical application of Einstein@home
10 Oct 2005 14:47:30 UTC
Topic 189997
(moderation:
I have the Boinc version of Einstein@Home running on my computer along with the Boinc versions of seti, climatepredictor, and predictor. I'm using the BOINC menubar, and this is running on Mac OS X 10.4.x.
I came in this morning to see a graphics version of Einstein open on my computer. First, how did this launch by itself? Second, where is the application to launch this located? For that matter where are all the BOINC applications stored? And last, is this a screensaver? I don't see it in my screensaver list, plus I don't see where I can even download the screensaver discussed on these web pages.
graphical application of Einstein@home
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I don't have the menubar version on this Mac, but I can tell you the "normal" Mac info for BOINC... In System Preferences/Desktop & Screen Saver, I have a "BOINCSaver". For Einstein and SETI, this will show graphics; for CPDN and P@H, it will show BOINC logo and possibly percentage complete. If you have "Use Random Screen Saver" selected, it could (randomly...) be invoked.
The BOINC Manager is stored in the standard Applications folder - I _think_ the Menubar would be in Library/Startupitems, either at the root level, the system level, or at the user level depending on how you installed it. Regardless of physical location, it should be visible in System Preferences/Accounts/Login Items. The various project's science applications are stored in Library/Application Support/BOINC Data, as they are not "user-runnable".
Hope this helps!
P.S... Trying to look at your computer info to see how it was set up, your turnaround times appear rather long for what is a quite fast computer, if Einstein is getting "close to equal" shares with your other projects. If you have "do work while computer is in use" set to no, and you possibly can, allowing that to be "yes" makes a BIG difference with the menubar version, and doesn't impact your use of the computer noticibly. (Even with Photoshop, Toast, other greedy apps. Thank you OSX!) If it's already "yes", then I suspect you turn your computer off when you aren't using it...
Actually, my most important
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Actually, my most important question regards the sudden appearance of the graphics version of Einstein. I've never installed it and after closing it, I can't figure out how to restart it. It was weird to say the least to see this new program running. No one has access to this computer, so a nefarious explanation is out! I'm pretty computer and Mac savvy, but this one has me stumped. The only thing I've installed is the BOINC menubar and that was back in May of this year. I do suspect however that it is a byproduct of an automatic update of the Darwin-based application. The name did include something like "version 4.43 for powerpc-apple-darwin."
Regarding the Screen Saver, I've never installed BoincSaver although I'll probably check it out.
You make interesting points about the performance. I do have it set to allow it to work while the computer is in use (and it's never turned off and does not sleep). This is a dual proc G5 (1.8 Ghz), and two BOINC process run at the same time, each one taking about ~50% of the CPU cycles. However, every 5 days or so, BOINC stops processing and once I notice it, I have to stop and restart it.
RE: (much snipped)
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I believe the "standard" install of the menubar client does include BOINCSaver. There was a new Altivec-optimized version of the Einstein software released recently - I don't know if that affected the Mac graphics side or not, I thought the older version had the same graphics but was just slower; the Windows version currently in beta I know has graphics fixes. There is also a "show graphics" command in the full install; I don't remember if that is somewhere in the menubar version or not, but this is above and beyond the screensaver. The graphics code is included in the science applications from SETI and Einstein. I can't answer "what tripped it to run" if it wasn't the screensaver somehow. Not using the screensavers myself, I haven't tracked any problems with them.
Personally, I put the Menubar version on my daughter's laptop - SETI only - simply so there would be "nothing to get in her way", yet it could do the occasional WU, and because as a Mac person, "CLI" is a four-letter word. I had it on "use only when not in use" but it was never returning any results on time so I changed that pref, as far as I know she never noticed. For any machine where I have regular or semi-regular access and use, I would go with the full BOINC Manager version. I don't even know if the menubar client will _exist_ in the V5.x world, that we'll be entering in a few days/weeks... and I've been using V4.72 for a while now and find it incredibly stable and bug-free on the Mac side, only known bug (to me) the "won't copy from message tab" problem we've had all along. The Windows version has a "no new work button not working" bug but seems much improved from V4.45. I'm hoping the V5.x versions will be considerably better (and less confusing to install) yet. The menubar version does things "different", puts things in different places, and generally is a pain, primarily because you can't use both it AND the Manager; on Windows you can do a "service install" (similar to Menubar in effect) yet still control it with the Manager when you want to.
I haven't seen the menubar version "hanging" as you report; I _have_ seen a number of WUs returned with "computation errors", I assume when the laptop crashes and isn't shut down properly. But then I don't have it switching projects. That would be a question for the BOINC boards, but most likely you'd just be told to wait for V5.x at the moment...