|
New Beta Tomorrow?
This just in from the alt.sci.seti newsgroup:
We’re putting the new Windows
version (2.70) into limited release tonight.� The bug was that the
worker thread was waiting for graphics to be drawn before
continuing.� That was a bad idea.� I can’t promise a general
release tomorrow, but I’m hoping that all works well tonight.
Back In Business
The servers are back online (*YAY*).� Some of you may still be having
problems sending results/downloading new work units.� That is mainly
because of the hordes of people trying to connect at the SETI servers all
at once.� Things should settle down as the day goes on though.�
This server outage has been the longest in quite a long time, and may
actually be the longest since I have been doing SETI crunching.
Don’t miss your chance, go to best new australian online casinos only here good luck awaits you!�
On alt.sci.seti Eric Korpela
offered up an explanation to the mess and here it is! (posted on the
newsgroup at about 1:10pm ET):
Hurry up and start winning with 25 freispiele at our casino. Limited supply!
We’re probably going to be
bringing the server back up in about 15 minutes or so.� I’ll try to
explain what happened and what it will look like.
Because of the limitations of informix (2 GB chunks) and the limitations
of Solaris (on partitions per disk) we had been limited to using 9 Gb
drives for the science database, and were rapidly approaching the number
of disks our controllers could handle.� As a work around we were
investigating using Veritas to get by these limitations (which would
allow us to use 18 Gb drives, in effect doubling our disk space). Buy best baby toothbrush. Monitor your child’s dental health.�
Before setting out to migrate the drives over to the new system we
decided performing tests to make sure it would work.� The
information and advice we had was to create a separate database space on
the new drives, so a failure wouldn’t affect the existing
database.� Well, it turns out one of the tests did fail several
days ago, but the database continued to operate just fine, as was
predicted.� Due to the failure the root chunk of the new database
space was corrupted.�� This wasn’t a problem until we
restarted the database machine to bring a new tape drive on-line.�
After the reboot, Informix complained that it couldn’t access the
corrupted chunk and wouldn’t allow inserts into any database, including
those unrelated to the missing chunk.� We couldn’t remove the bad
chunk because it was corrupted, Informix couldn’t fix the bad chuck
because it was too corrupted.� We couldn’t restore the bad chunk
from a backup because no backup of the bad chunk existed.� So we
were stuck with a database that was readable, but not
writeable.��
We eventually came to the concusion that the only way to get back up in
any reasonable amount of time was to restore the database to the new 18
Gb disks using the last full backup (which took a bit more than 12
hours, we should thank Matt and Jeff for getting up in the middle of the
night to change tapes). That’s done, and we’re getting to the point
where we’ll have enough usable work units to restart in a few minutes.
User stats shouldn’t be affected, but science that are more recent than
the last full backup won’t be in the new database.� It’ll look like
we’ve gone backwards on the graphs page.� We’ve still got the
missing science on the old 9 Gb drives, but it’ll take time and lots of
informix tech support to get it into the new database.
We’ve also got the problem that results will be coming back that don’t
match workunits in the database.� I’m going to be stashing these
until I figure out what to do with them.� They’ll probably have to
sit on disk until we get the database merged again.
Well, I’m off to start the server now.�
Eric
Note About Today’s Stats
For those of you who noticed, the stats did not get updated
yesterday.� This was because all of the cgi scripted pages were
offline while the servers were down.� These are the same pages that I
end up getting the data for the stats updates….so therefore I couldn’t
do the update.� Ok well that isn’t REALLY true, I could, but I would
have to change my Excel sheets, but I played CounterStrike instead
:).�
Shortly after the servers were back online (sometime
around 2:30 ET), I was able to do both the overall team and TLC member
stats.� For my spreadsheets I duplicated the numbers from Tuesday’s
update and entered them for yesterday’s update (to keep my stats sheets
working :).� I then updated for today with today’s numbers.�
Because the stats were pulled so quickly after the servers were back
online, the stats for today will sort of mirror the numbers that should
have been updated yesterday.� (Do you follow me here?).�
Tomorrow’s update will probably show quite a bit of work units posted,
because of people submitting queued up work units after their buffer
flushes.�
In retrospect, I should have entered the stats data I took
around 2:30 for *yesterdays* numbers (because they would have been close
to those posted yesterday)….and did a second update later tonight after
many people have sent in results and flushed buffers etc…..But I guess
its too late now 🙂
–zAmboni
SETI Servers Down
Of course you probably already know this, but as of 12:00am ET the Data
Servers are down.� The servers have been down since at least 6pm ET
when I got home from work and tried to connect to them.� There was
little warning though.� There was a post today on the Tech
News page stating:
July 12th, 2000
We are fixing some bugs with the
Informix database today, so the data server will be down until these are
fixed.
Originally the note said “unitl 4:30 PM PST, but
obviously they ran into some problems that are taking them quite a bit
longer than that.� Unfortunately all of the stats that I need to do
the updates are down also, so I am waiting.� I may try a quick hack
job on my Excel Files to get at least some data from the pages that are
still up…but I am not sure when those pages were last updated.
Funny, Ha Ha
A bit of humor to tide you over until I get some stats updated (from
alt.sci.seti):
> I got to thinking just now.
Is there a legitimate way for me to take some
> kind of tax deduction on my home computer because of the fact that
I am
> donating computing resources to a public, not-for-profit, entity?
>
> Any ideas?
No,� but you could run TAXRETURN@HOME, a distributed computing
project where
you process someone else’s tax return and calculate how much money some
poor
sod’s gonna pay :))
–zAmboni
�
RAM Guide Online
Now this is something that I have needed to learn more about for a
while.� Hannibal has posted Part 1 of his RAM Guide:� DRAM
and SRAM Basics.� I have been looking for a source to learn
more about RAM and how RAM works, especially in an easy to digest
manner.� Hannibal does a pretty good job of covering the basics, even
though he does tend to lose me in a spot or two (not a hard thing to do
:-).�� If you want to learn more about RAM, or even if you need
a refresher course, check it out!
More Beta Updates
There have been alot of questions on whether or not to start or continue
running the beta version 3.0 client.� Personally I stopped running
the beta after my first work unit completed on it.� The beta is
broke.� Not completely, but it doesn’t run as efficiently as
planned.� They are working on it and hope to have a new beta soon.
Yep, there appears to be a
contention problem between the threads.� There’s
a recent change that could have caused this, and we’re testing some
machines
with that portion altered.� If that
fixes it, we’ll have a new beta version
next week.� If anyones seen this
problem on anything besides Windows, let me
know.� The anticipated runtime
difference between this and the old version
should be around 25%.
Eric
There may be other bugs in the beta, but I will wait till
the next beta comes out though 🙂
Anyone Running Solaris?
There were actually 3 beta clients released at the same time, one for
Windows, one for Mac and one for Solaris.� Personally I am not sure
if the Solaris client is actually a CLI or a GUI client, but I think it is
a CLI client.� Run times from the Solaris CLI (?) client would give
us some information on how the Windows/NT CLI would run from this post:
Well, there was only a command
line version for Solaris (for version 2.x).
Since Solaris
is most likely the primary development platform for the client it isn’t
surprising that that comes out first.
Lawrence Kirby
Version 2.x Client Now
Available for AS/400
Got one at home?� Now you can crunch some SETI on it.� The word
comes from Hiram:
Finally, we have been able to get
a working client
for IBM AS/400 machines.� Please note the extensive
README: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/README.AS400.txt
The platform name is powerpc-ibm-OS400, so look for
it near the end of the download table at:
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/unix.html
–zAmboni
�
One Million Part Deux!
At the time of today’s stats update, Team Lamb Chop repassed the 1,000,000
work unit completed mark!� Congratulations again to each and every
Team Lamb Chop member which has helped make this happen.� This is
just another step in our reclaiming of the #1 Club Team spot.� There
are only a total of 5 SETI teams which have passed the 1 million
mark…and Team Lamb Chop is the only team that has done it TWICE!
Currently TLC is about 135,000 work units behind Art
Bell.� Over the past week or so we have been gaining on Art Bell
about 1500 WU/day.� At that current rate we shall pass Art Bell again
in say…3 months.� Granted any increase in team output could change
that significantly, so stay tuned.
Another team which continues to make moves and waves are The
Knights Who Say Ni!.� In the past week they passed CCI
Seti Crunshers for the #9 overall team spot.� They are continuing to
make waves by adding new members just about every day.� Currently
they are #2 in the work units processed per day category behind Team Lamb
Chop.� they would need to significantly improve their work unit
output though to seriously challenge us in the near future since TLC is
over 340,000 work units ahead of them.� But again stranger things
have happened.�
More Beta Stuff
Eric Korpela weighs in with some info that the problem with the current
beta may have been found, and could be fixed real soon.�
Yep, there appears to be a
contention problem between the threads.� There’s a recent change
that could have caused this, and we’re testing some machines with that
portion altered.� If that fixes it, we’ll have a new beta version
next week.� If anyones seen this problem on anything besides
Windows, let me know.� The anticipated runtime difference between
this and the old version should be around 25%.
Eric
This is good news.� I currently cannot see any reason
for continuing to run the current Windows beta, unless you are a
sadomasochist.� Hopefully a new beta will be out next (this?) week,
and hopefully will run more according to their plans.� A 25% hit in
time isn’t that great, but again that is an estimate.� We will have
to find out for sure when the new beta hits the shelves.
View From the Dark Side
I received an email today from Mac user Brock.� He wanted to share
his results from the Mac Beta.� This may give us more of an insight
to how the final Windows Beta will perform.
I have a G3/350 128M� MacOS
9.0.4 that is doing units about 45min to an 1 hour over my
average.�� I’ve included a pictures to show you my
times.� Hope that this gives you some valuable information about
the Macintosh side of Beta 3.
Brock
From the screenshots his average time for completion on
the Mac is just about 8 hrs.� Thanks to Brock for sharing the
info.�� –zAmboni
�
Distributed Processing
Article
I was passed along word from VulTure
today about an article on CNN.com about how businesses and others are
trying to take the lead set by the SETI@Home project to use distributed
processing for other type of projects.� You can check out the article
here.�
Beta Update
What I thought was a problem with the state.sah file was actually
normal.� the bg_pot and bt_pot variables are actually the two
variables which tell the GUI what to draw on the small “result”
graph (above the progress bar)
Further Update…Eric
K posted that they may have some ideas on what is going wrong with the
slow times for the Beta….and it only appears to affect Windows machines:
>Has anyone submitted an
official bug report on this?
Consider it official.� We’re chasing 3 leads.� Those accusing
us of
Intel favoritism should note that this bug only appears to affect
Windows
machines.� 🙂
Eric
Finally…Yesterday
when I said that the “best pulse” disappeared and then came
back, that was because the window switches in between 1) the strongest
gaussian found 2) the strongest pulse found and 3) the strongest triplet
found.� It appears that the work unit that I was processing only had
a best pulse, and didn’t contain any triplet or gaussian.��
Don’t get discouraged with the results from the beta release.� They
are doing an open beta to find out these problems and rectify them before
the official release.�� –zAmboni
�
Happy
Anniversary!
That’s right, I’ve been running Seti for 1 year, as of today. In order to
celebrate (rant), I went ahead and jotted a look back at the team one year
ago. This was written on a napkin using a crayon, which I ate afterwards.
I hope you enjoy the reading as much as I
enjoyed the crayon. –Rat
Beta Update
My first beta work unit is *STILL*
running.� It has been running for 21 hrs and 38 min and it is at
88.5%.� Remember this is still a BETA! Well the good
news is that it doesn’t look like the client should be running this
long.� Most of the reports I have seen on alt.sci.seti and elsewhere
have the clients running very slowly.� There are
exceptions…but� they are few and far between.� For example:
“Talisker” <axanos13@nospam.hotmail.com>
wrote in message
news:ML595.9823$iQ4.1297677@news3.mia…
> angle_range = 0.379
> Dell Optiplex GX1
> PII 450
> Dell Stock Mobo
> 64 Mb SDRAM
> Rage Pro Turbo AGB 2X Video Card (I think 16Mb Ram)
> Windows98
> First WU using GUI version 2.66 showing completion time of about 12
hours.
Eric Korpela showed up showing concern and wanting more
info from those who are getting slow times with the beta:
Could those of you who are having
very slow run times look at the
work_unit.sah file and tell me the value of the “angle_range”
parameter.
We’re trying to figure out whether this slowdown is related to the
work units, or some aspect of the system.� Any info about your
system
and/or graphics card would be helpful.
Eric
Talisker also chimed in with some data taken from
TaskInfo2000.� Granted I don’t know what this actually means, but it
may be a symptom of the slow down.
I’ve noticed that the number of
CPU Switches per second are extremely high
when running the GUI Version 2.66 Beta.
I have seen values of between 87 and 18,000 but the number of CPU
switches
seems to hover between 12,000 and 16,000.
Has anyone else seen this happening?
BTW…my values are from Taskinfo2000.
Christopher J. Race� 19.7*@2.05yrs.� :o)
�
The beta has started, and it looks like they have some
stuff they still need to work on.� Don’t worry too much about the
completion times, they are most likely a result of some bugs still left in
the code.� I personally have a feeling that alot of the problem with
time has to do with the graphical interface.� But that is a gut
feeling.� I’ll keep you guys informed� –zAmboni
�
Version 3.0 Beta
Preview
click on picture for larger view
About an hour ago I downloaded the beta version of the version 3.0
client.� Of course I promptly fired it up to give it a whirl.�
This is what the email and the download page has to say about the client:
The big change in 3.0 is vastly improved
science – we are now searching for pulses and triplets as well as spikes
and gaussians. Web pages describing these in more detail will be up soon
on the main home page.� Other improvements include optimized FFTs
(for faster analysis of wave data) and various bug fixes. Because of the
extra analysis, processing workunits will take more time than it did
with version 2.0x. If the workunits take more than twice as long as they
used to, however, please let us know (include information about how you
run your client, i.e. do you go to a blank screen immediately, does it
run in the background, etc.).
First off, I just want to say….don’t email me asking for the link or
for me to email you the client.� Sign up for the beta yourself (read
the news a couple of items below).� The download page is a one time
shot, once you enter the information to download the client you will not
be able to access the page again.� (so if you sign up make sure you
download the client before you leave that page!).� Currently there
are ONLY, the Windows 95/95 GUI, Mac Client and a Solaris Client available
for download.�
Ok that is out of the way, so lets take a look at the new v 3.0
GUI.� Click on the above pic (or here)
for a larger view of the client screen.� On the surface there doesn’t
appear to be too much difference from the version 2.x versions of the
client.� About the only change I can tell is that the “current
best gaussian” fit (above the progress bar) is gone.� Right now
it either stays blank or when the client is searching for pulses it shows
the “search” for the pulse and then briefly shows the best pulse
found.� The field will then go blank.� The above screenshot that
I had taken shows the best pulse found before it disappeared.� There
is a possibility that there will also be gaussian fitting for the work
unit that shows up in that window….but I have yet to see any.� I
may not have progressed far enough in the work unit to see the gaussian
fitting.�
Yea yea yea, that is all and nice…but tell us what we REALLY want to
know now OK?� I know you all want to know how the v 3.0 client
performs compared to the 2.x clients……WELL….lets just say I may be
writing them an email.
It has actually been quite a while since I ran a work unit with the GUI
client…so I have to turn to the Benchmarking
Results for a comparison with version 2.0.� The closest
benchmark (to my system) is from RedBeard running a PIII @ 700MHz
(140FSB).� He turned a time of 5:13 on the Win32 GUI version
2.0.� I am currently running a PIII @ 800MHz (133FSB), the GUI client
has been running a mix of on screen and in background (mostly background)
for a total of 1 hr 25 minutes.�� How much of the work unit has
it completed?� 5.682%.� Doing a quick calculation…..that
would work out to be a total of 24-25 hours to complete the work unit.
There is a possibility that the client will speed up later on….but
for it to turn some respectable times, it better start cranking pretty
soon.� To be honest I have also been doing some other stuff while the
client has been running…but I don’t think it should have slowed the
client *that* much.� Again I have yet to see any type of triplet
search, or any gaussian fitting done.� I will update this with the
completion time and also if anything else shows up on the GUI
screen.�
Back To Work!
Hope you all had a good 4th of July.� The cool thing of yesterday
happened when I was driving around Ann Arbor.� Hearing the sound of
jet engines, I looked up through the sunroof of my car to see two F-16s
flying directly over.� When I was halfway down the next block,
looking ahead and flying low was a B-17 and P-51 Mustang crossing in front
of me, flying in formation.� Tres Cool.
New Logo
Like it?� I changed the old logo that was at the top of the pages to
the logo that rayban came up
with.� I think it is pretty sharp!� Now I have to get Rat
Bastard to change to it on the benchmarking pages :).� I am looking
to get the logo that dupree produced
on the Team Member List on the S@H servers….and possibly on the S@H page
over at Ars.� May take a bit, but hopefully it will be soon.
A New #9
Possibly by the time you read this, The Knights
Who Say Ni! shall have passed CCI SETI Crunshers for the #9
overall team spot.� Congrats to TKWSN, and may we wish you many
shrubberies.
Public Beta Testing for Version 3.0
Though still not ready for primetime, there was a message on the
alt.sci.seti newsgroup stating that the SETI@Home crew are looking for
some Public Beta testers for Version 3.0 of their client.� Here is
their post on the newsgroup:
Hello everyone,
Public beta testing for the SETI@home client v3.0 is beginning
now.� We
are accepting a limited number of applications to beta test the newest
SETI@home client.
To sign up, please send an email to beta@setiathome.berkeley.edu
with
the subject line “Beta Test”.� You will be contacted
shortly thereafter
with instructions regarding testing.� Thank you!
–zAmboni
�
Back With a Vengence!
Team Lamb Chop thoroughly schooled Intel
a second time! ;-).� Sometime yesterday TLC repassed Intel for the #5
overall team position.� With Intel’s recent corporate trouble, and
AMD kicking some serious butt, isn’t it nice to slap ChipZilla silly not
once but TWICE? :)� We still have a ways to go to repass Art
Bell….but you know what?� We will eventually do it.� It is not
a matter of if….but when.
Server Outage Today
There was this note on the technical
news section of the SETI@Home Servers.
July 2nd, 2000
On July 3rd, starting at 17:00 UT, we
will have a server outage to add RAID hardware to the science database
server. This outage should last less than 2 hours
Some of you may actually ask yourself “what the heck is RAID
hardware?”� If you would like to find out some more about RAID I
would like to point you to Panders’ RAID
Guide over at Ars Technica.� I have to be honest, I knew that
RAID was some type of “on the fly” error checking and backup of
data….but I had no clue how it worked.� This guide
gives you the low down on the different flavors of RAID and how they are
implemented.
Happy Holidays!
For those of you in Canada, I want to wish you a belated Canada Day!�
Living in the Detroit area, I am extremely grateful for access to CBC
television, Hockey Night in Canada, and the introduction to The Kids in
the Hall many years ago.� It is also great to hop on over to Windsor
and have my Casino Dollars go quite a bit further.� The cheap (and
more potent!) booze from the duty-free shop cant be beat also!
For those of you in the States, I wish you a happy 4th of July
tomorrow…..and please remember those (like me) who actually have to work
tomorrow, while you are sitting at the beach or cooking on the grill
knocking a couple of cold ones back.
And Not to Forget…
dupree and rayban
have cranked out some kick ass graphics for the team.� Some of their
submissions are shown in the thread
here.� Drop on by and give some comments.� Hopefully
soon we will be implementing some of the graphics on the site and
elsewhere. (note:� It seems that dupree’s graphics aren’t loading
currently)
I would also like to add that the team forum will probably be moving
back into the Ars Technica
fold.� After starting the forum here, Caesar, RB and I have realized
that having a separate forum for the team is not the greatest idea for all
involved.� We are working on it and will keep you
informed!�� –zAmboni
�
An Explanation
guru made a post today with an explanation on why he has pulled his
accounts from the team.� You can check
it out here.
Honestly I do understand his reasoning…but I do not necessarily agree
with his form of protest.�� –zAmboni
�
-Front Page
|
