XtremLab is back!

[NeoGen]

After much work, and getting a new server, the XtremLab team is back on track! :D

http://xw01.lri.fr:4320/


XtremLab is a project using the Boinc platform. Contrary to other projects, we do not use grid for computations about physics, mathematics or biology: we study the grid technology itself. We perform performances analysis in order to find how to improve performances of all others projects.
(Don't expect a screensaver for it... :P)

You can attach through the boinc wizards, but if your nostalgic the menus are on the top right corner of the site. (Took me a little bit to spot them :lol:)

After registering, join our Team here:
http://xw01.lri.fr:4320/team_display.php?teamid=20

Notes about the project:
Everything is back to zero again, so users of the first XtremLab run have to create new accounts once more.
The project is Linux only for now, but other versions are promised for soon.
The project takes almost no cpu. Workunits live on your system for about 10 minutes, during which time they only poll the machine for available resources every 10 seconds.

Have fun Linux members! :D

[gamer007]

Dang.. still linux users? Oh well, might as well reserve an account for myself.

[NeoGen]

Say... anyone runs Linux around here? I'm feeling kinda lonely... :P

[NeoGen]

Can anyone here with a Linux box cover for me?

I am running it off a virtual machine, and that takes alot of RAM. I'm shutting it down because I'm gonna need all the RAM I got and the one I don't too!

[Brucifer]

My gut feeling is pi$$ on them................ I ran up a ton of points and put a ton of system time on the project. Then they jerk everything around and expect people to go back after that??? Running these boxes takes a lot of juice and it's quite rather irking to have them be so cavalier about other people's gift to them.


No thanks, I'll just stay with PSP.

[Brucifer]

Ah what the heck.............. while I'm on it, this is another of the reasons why I'm not doing squat on the boinc stuff anymore. Every Tom Dick and Harry outfit comes along and puts up a boinc project. No work, beta or alpha doesn't pan out, no resources behind them and they can't run backups worth a hoot, and the list goes on. And throw on top of it new boinc versions that come along faster than a 12 month old baby gets it's diapers changed. :mad:

[Lagu]

Hi

Brucifer, you said it!

It is too bad that every new project use Boinc platforms. It was better before Boinc was launched. Will Boinc take dead of our interest for Distributed Computing?

I know, many are forced to run this platform even if they dislike it.
The Grid platform is the best.


Lagu :evil:

[NeoGen]

Yep, that's the price of open-source freedom. :roll:

[drezha]

I love the BOINC platform.

Though from now on I'm sticking to the more developed projects. :roll:

Saying that I'm nearly 100% QMC@Home ATM :lol:

[Ototero]

I said it before, I'll say it again, I'm anti-boinc too. Not even the stats are stable. How many times have I shown that people LOSE points on boinc without any explanation.

[Brucifer]

Say it again man!! :)

Pretty sad though really. The seti project is still having lots of problems. So it is rather lame when the originators can't even get their project running anywhere close stability-wise compared to the original seti.

But back to the Xtremlab people, the project manager didn't even bother to send out a group mailing to the people to grease the skids and thank them. Of course......................... $hit happens when you don't have backups to get email addy's. :roll:

[gamer007]

Man I feel lonely. I think I'm the only one here who likes the boinc platform. :-(

The fact that I can join multiple projects using one "manager" is what I like about it. That way, I don't have to switch between, lets say, 17 or bust and D2OL every so often, and etc.

[NeoGen]

I like boinc too gamer, but I can't argue against the facts. :roll:

And I still believe that someday Boinc will be a great and flawless platform :)

[Brucifer]

Oh I think it is a great concept, and is truly the future. But I also think that it isn't ready for prime time yet except on a couple projects that have the resources to nurse it along and feed it. Unfortunately Berkeley put it on the road a little soon. And it is running very well on a couple projects. Unfortunately as I said earlier every Tom Dick and Harry is trying to hop on the bandwagon, and they really shouldn't be running anything as they just don't have the backing to make the project happen. And several of them crapping out has given boinc a bad name. To keep it on topic :) Xtremlab was one of the ones that shouldn't have been running a project... and that isn't a fault of boinc. That was pure and simple the staff at Xtremlab.

With the number of projects out there now, it is really important to take a hard long look at the resources behind a project. That is unless a person just doesn't care whether the projects they crunch on make it or not. In comparison, look at Rosetta. That is a good project with some real hard core backing. I wish now that I would have put my system time toward Rosetta or Predictor. Live and learn I guess. :!:

[gamer007]

I have to agree Brucifer. SETI@Home seems to still have a couple of quarks (spelling) and other problems still, even after a couple years of BOINC. I assume part of the problem is the huge database of people crunching for SETI. Rosetta and Predictor are both great projects with little-to-none problems.

If only the other projects were more little like Rosetta and Predictor, then BOINC would definately the the way of the future.

[Brucifer]

But eventually, things seem to work out. If Xtremlab learned something through their first attempt, and are back at it, then it wasn't all for naught. And while rosetta and predictor are doing pretty good now, they went through some serious bumps earlier in their efforts too.

[NeoGen]

Ah... finally somebody joined me at XtremLab! :D

Welcome Sandtiger. I was really needing the help there. :)

EDIT:
Operating System Linux
2.4.22-xbox-Gentoox

Does this mean you're running XtremLab from an Xbox?? :shock:

[Brucifer]

Okay neo... I put a couple intel boxes on it that won't interfere with my sieving for PSP. I know, I know..... Pi$$ on them, pi$$ on me. Whatever..... :)

[NeoGen]

I know we all love AMD's here, but heck, even an Intel is better than my virtual machine! :lol:

Welcome aboard Brucifer! :D

I've been watching Sandtiger and it seems his setup is not running XtremLab so well... Xboxes might not be quite ready for DC'ing yet... :P

[Brucifer]

okay, I'll bite..... :) explain your "virtual" machine please.

And yes, I know, I'm a sinner, two intel systems in my otherwise AMD house. :) But there are some projects that do better on intels than amd's.

Anyway, at least they are showing up in the stats. :D

[AMD-USR_JL]

Yea the old Xboxes are not good at Dcing. They only had a 733Mhz Celeron processor with 64mb of ram. They did have a 10gb hdd think. I was going to put linux on mine, but my Cd-drive broke :-( . It was 6 years old :lol: .

I can't wait for the ps3 though, they said it will have an OS on it, maybe linux or MAC. It's going to have 7 3.2Ghz ppc cores. It will have 256 Mb of Xdr ram @3.2Ghz and 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz. I dunno what kind of ram those are, but they sound pretty SwEEt. It has a really awesome gpu too(1.8 TERAFLOPS), if they ever make apps that use it. The only bad thing is that it isn't IEEE whatever compliant in 32-bit mode. It only is in 64-bit, and no projects use 64-bit code yet. In 64-bit mode the 7 cores do an estimated 25Gflops, in comparison my dually does 3.4-3.5.

[NeoGen]

okay, I'll bite..... :) explain your "virtual" machine please.

A virtual machine is a software emulation of a computer. Ever heard of VMWare, or Virtual PC?
Anyways... you setup a virtual machine with some desired parameters for RAM and harddrive, start it up and install an OS on it just like you would do on a normal machine. It really shows everything as if it was a normal machine, only that it runs on a window.

The only thing is that the virtual machine runs way slower than a real machine so it is not good for projects that are cpu intensive. XtremLab happens to not make much use out of the cpu so it's just good for one. :)

And yea... Intels are pretty good too. I was kidding with you. :) I think that on most (if not all) maths projects they are as good or even better than AMD's.