DU computers UNITE!!

[ny_liberal]

See this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5672092

[ny_liberal]

1. F@H basics

Folding@home is a distributed computing effort by the Stanford University to compute protein folding to understand how to combat many of the worlds diseases, like Cancer, Mad Cow (CDJ, human form), Alzheimer's, ALS and Parkinson's disease.

Over 2,00,000 Mac and PC users run this small application on their computers to put their spare CPU cycles to use and help contribute to this worldwide project that requires hundreds of thousands, if not millions of processors to complete. No effort on your part is required, the program loads a work unit, finishes it and gets another automatically, all with high encryption back and forth from Stanford's servers. No personal information is required, just a nickname and a team number.

It doesn't interfere with your normal usage, it runs at the same time as other applications, utilizing your spare CPU cycles, you just set it and forget it. All Folding@home versions will self scale down if you require more CPU, instantly; meaning it will get out of your way if your running other applications at the same time.

Points are generated for every finished work unit that goes towards your score and towards the teams.

[RoyGBiv]

2. Done ...

I started it running last night late, and it's about half-way through the first assigned work unit.

It seems to be quite nice about letting me have resources back when I need them. Kinda scary at first to see CPU usage maxed at 100% all the time, though. :-)

[ny_liberal]

3. Welcome to the team

Glad to have you folding with us

[mcscajun]

4. Kickin' for Team DU!

:kick:

On my third WU here. :)

[ny_liberal]

5. Another bump

:)

[RoyGBiv]

6. Wondering ...

I should probably read the site documents more thoroughly, but having not done that, I'm curious how the system hands out work units.

Just looking at the results so far, some people seem to be getting really small units while others get bigger ones. I've been assigned four and have completed 3. The first one took a day and a half, the next two were completed within 24 hours, and the most recent one started yesterday and has about half done.

This not a complaint, just a curiosity.

[ny_liberal]

7. WUs are assigned in order of priority

as project deadline approaches, WU sizes get smaller

[RoyGBiv]

8. Okay, but ...

That doesn't really answer my question.

Some people seem to get small WUs more often than others. You see a lot of people with one WU completed and ~46 points. My first WU was worth a couple hundred points, the next two less than a hundred, and the next over 200 again. I browsed some other teams, and I saw, for example, a couple people on one team who had completed several hundred WU but had a score not much higher than mine, and I've only completed 4. The WUs assigned to me and certain others seem to be rather large. (FWIW, I'm not caught up in the points. I just noted that more points are given for larger projects that take more time, which is where my assumptions about WU size are originating.)

And what I'm wondering if this determination is made based on the benchmarking test the program does prior to retrieving a WU. That would seem to be the logical answer because I did find a note that stated WU will time out and be reassigned if not completed within a certain amount of time, which was variable depending on priority of the WU itself. My system is rather fast, has a huge amount of storage, and a goodly amount of RAM, so it also seems to make sense my system would be assigned larger WUs.

Again, this is not a complaint. I just want to understand how the program itself works, and I'm not finding a good explanation on the web site, although I freely admit I may simply be overlooking it.

[unhappycamper]

9. I saw the same thing on climateprediction.net when

they added the sulphur work units.

The WU went from 72 to 120 trickles & are about 40% slower than the older ones. It took them a few weeks to get the credits straightened out. Here's a link to the Q/A board -> http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_forum.php?id=2

BTW, team democraticunderground.com is #134 on the all time leader board.

[ny_liberal]

10. WU assignment may be based on CPU

I may be wrong though.

[Igel]

18. I haven't done folding@home for a year, but IIRC there's

a preference you can set, indicating whether or not you'll accept large WUs. It defaults to 'no'.

Probably because some people have slow connections and can't download larger ones, or because some people have their CPU on for short enough periods that they would violate the time limits on WU completion if they got a larger one.

[On the Road]

19. There is an Option in the Setup Process

allowing the user to choose only small work units. I imagine that's why the user of the very bottom of the DU list has 13 work units but only 2 credits.

[Avalux]

11. I have a question about distributed computing in general

Mainly about security. I signed up last night and my PC is on its second WU. I was wondering about hacks and various other problems associated with such a system - how safe is it?

[ny_liberal]

12. it's very safe

Stanford University is one of the top universities on the planet. They couldn't afford the scandal that would result, were they getting anything from the computer that didn't relate to the Folding@home project.

http://folding.stanford.edu/faq.html#misc.security

Hope it helps enough

[northzax]

13. it's strange, I don't seem to be getting credit

for completed WUs, I have done three, by my count, in the past couple of days, since signing up, and have no credits on the site at all. Does it take a while for them to post? Just want to make sure that nothing's being wasted.

[Twillig]

15. Are you running from Terminal?

(I've lurked the Mac forum and know your computer, I guess.)

check your config file 'Client.cfg' to see if it's set up right. you'll find that in User/Library/Folding@home

Open it in text edit. It will look like:



Make the appropriate changes--like to team # and username--save, and you'll be what you want to be.

[northzax]

16. looks like this:

username=northzax
team=48157
asknet=no
bigpackets=no
machineid=1


active=no
host=localhost
port=8080
user=
pass=


polycount=16


checkpoint=15


type=1


_________

I haven't changed anything. help?

by the way, the record of the latest work unit is:

Current Work Unit
-----------------
Name: p2305_BBA5_Mutant
Download time: January 1 23:05:21
Due time: January 16 23:05:21
Progress: 32% <|||_______>


the reason I know I've done something is that I downloaded my first unit on December 29, so something must have finished before it picked this one up on 1/1, right?

thanks-

[mcscajun]

14. Kick! n/t

:kick:

[Kire]

17. that link is dead

can somebody provide DU's team number? Edit: here it is, 48157

Here is what Folding@Home says on their home page:

Our goal: to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases

What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease? Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.

Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

You can help by simply running a piece of software. Folding@Home is a distributed computing project -- people from through out the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer makes the project closer to our goals.

Folding@Home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems thousands to millions of times more challenging than previously achieved.

http://folding.stanford.edu/

[clixtox]

20. Overtaken!

For one of the few, if not the only time, the DU Folding at Home team is being overtaken in total points in a few days...

[mainegreen]

21. Centos? yeah, I've been watchinh them catch up.

Quickly