Hi all,
Thanks to the help of DK and Rom, we now have a version of the boinc client that attaches to the project as a default user. It installs like the regular boinc client, but it doesn't prompt for the project URL or go through account creation. It's intended for those who want to help the project and don't care about having their own account, or would be turned off by the complexity of the full install (think of someone not familiar/comfortable with computers).

I intend to make about a hundred copies and hand them out to the Resident Advisors in our dorms in a couple weeks (~5500 students, 2/3 freshman). Hopefully a good number will take a few minutes to install.

The default account is set at very basic settings. It won't use more than 1 cpu, or any significant portion of your hard drive or virtual memory. It won't run on a laptop when running on batteries.

There is a known bug (it's with the 5.4.11 client, not this package) where it will give an error connecting to the project. It actually connects fine after you 'ok' the error.

Anyway, before I spend money and time burning a bunch of copies of this, I'd like to get a bit of feedback from people willing to test/use the client.

Here's the URL. Feel free to play around with it. If you have any comments, please post them here or email the rosettamod at gmail.com account.

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/rosetta_5.4.11_windows_intelx86.exe

The .exe only supports Windows/x86. This was done on volunteer time and we don't have the ability to support several applications (and the different versions of software required to automate the install).

Thanks!

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This is great news! Thanks for putting it together. Do you have anything like a README file yet? Just a single page describing what's on the disk and what it's supposed to do when you install it? ...and then I'd end such a README by saying "...and for more information..." and have some URLs to BOINC.Berkeley and bakerlab.org. Might also document the steps to follow if they decide to take on the account themselves and want to setup their own profile.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Yep. . all of that is planned, once I get some feedback that this works well for people other than the three or four people that have tested it so far :)

I'll be focusing on the student-dorm population. I'm sure the project would appreciate someone taking this on for the world.

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good work - will test when i get home this evenin.

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Looks good to me. I was able to attach a regular project as well without real problems.

Just needs an update to the latest client when released and it should be good to go.

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BOINC WIKI

BOINCing since 2002/12/8

Ethan, how is it been going with the install CDs? Can you share with us the account name so we can watch you RAC up the Fall school season of crunchers?

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

A couple of questions about the student deployment effort.

Most of the incoming student populations I've had recent exposure to are heavily biased towards laptops. Did you attempt to come to grips with the possible overheating problem, or are the RAs just not pitching the project to students with laptops?

Also, if you are targeting student laptops, did you add any instruction along the lines of using stand-by/hibernate (instead of shutdown) to reduce the amount of lost work?

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A couple of questions about the student deployment effort.

Most of the incoming student populations I've had recent exposure to are heavily biased towards laptops. Did you attempt to come to grips with the possible overheating problem, or are the RAs just not pitching the project to students with laptops?

Also, if you are targeting student laptops, did you add any instruction along the lines of using stand-by/hibernate (instead of shutdown) to reduce the amount of lost work?

I beleive they are just using conservative settings, though it'll still cause a loptop to heat up when on mains power, though the laptop should be able to cope with this (more chance of your battery exploding* nowadays ;-) than it overheating.
Since this is suppose to be a simple set & forget, going into things like hibernate and suspend is too complicated (too much for someone that just want to install it to read though). Also from my memeory of using it, suspending and certainly hibernate casue it to restart from the least checkpoint anyway.



*this has nothing to do with BOINC btw ;-).

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Team mauisun.org

Morning all,
I burned about 100 copies of a cd with the basic installer, instructions, and the three main 'full' installers (win/osx/linux) and handed them out to our RAs.

The instructions I put together went through the simple install and described the steps necessary to do a full install (just the extra steps of entering the project url and creating an account). I went through the extras gained by doing the full install, specifically, being able to see your work (and get credit for it if you find something significant).

After an informal poll with our help desk students, I decided to leave out any disclaimers about laptop heat. The students said they, and their peers, are very aware that laptops get hot if you run them on a pillow/bed.

Since the basic settings don't allow the laptop to run on battery, I felt the 'risk' was minimal. . especially considering laptops have protection mechanisms to shut them down before overheating, and I put a link to the R@H disclaimer page in bold at the top of the instructions.

So far only one person has installed the basic client. Today is the first day of school and we'll be bulk emailing residents in about a month, so I'm sure that will go up. Also, we have no way of telling how many students are doing the full rather than generic install.

Here's the account: https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/hosts_user.php?userid=105444

-E

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Question.

Will the students have access to this fora for posting purposes? Wouldn't they need the full blown account for that? And what if they run into problems?

tony

I don't really want an answer. I was posting this incase you for some reason hadn't thought of it. :)

Yep, thought of it and let them know the full blown account lets them post on the boards. You don't need to be logged in (ie have an account) to view the forums.

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So Ethan, how did it go with the install CDs? I don't see active users on that account. Is they because they later set-up their own accounts? Or was there just as much resistence to a CD as there is via the internet?

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Well I'd like to think all the students decided to follow the email and get their own account. . but in reality I don't think many of the 100 CD's I made were actually advertised to students let alone made available to them (I gave a presentation to their resident advisors).

If anyone is interested in the stand alone install, I'd be happy to help with the info I gained from the UW student project.

-E

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