Have any developments arisen for CPDN to give tasks that can be crunched by MacBookPro (Intel) computers?

Are we still waiting for a programmer?

Is there a date when action is likely to take place, or has CPDN now given up on using Macs, (and Linux)?

If you can let me know if there is any possibility of a resumption, I will continue to check the Forum occasionally as I have just done, but, if not, I will know that it is a waste of time and shall cease to do so.

Keith

A new programmer has been hired in Tolu's role. He's only just got started and is currently on 50% time, and so nothing has been done yet. I presume that it will get done eventually has he is being supplied with a Mac for development.

My replacement is only temporary and he's involved with a dreadful database task at the moment.

Rumour has it that there'll be some more FAMOUS, but the crystal ball went cloudy when asked about a timeline.

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Backups: Here

Interesting that the Server Status page has said, "no tasks ready to send" for famous when my last two famous tasks have been sent. I did have a gap when one core was doing other projects but am now back running cpdn on both.
Dave

FAMOUS was Oxford Uni's contribution to the short term, global, Millennium project.
This involvement (sponsorship), ended at the end of December, and the project person, Hiro, moved back to his "day job".
But he's said that the global researchers would like some more data. Just when this will be uploaded to the cpdn servers is unknown.

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Backups: Here

Les.

I am back "visiting" to see if there has been any progress in availability of any work on CPDN for my MacBookPro (Intel), but, alas, negative on that front.

However, I think you did not answer the question put by Dave.
He was wondering why he had been sent 2 FAMOUS tasks in March 2011 when the Server Status page shows no tasks available.
I think the answer to that is that a few FAMOUS tasks have been resent after being returned from other crunchers on reaching the task time limit, or maybe on reorganizing the data on the transfer between the server's hard disks.

Still looking forward to some time when I shall be able to make a useful contribution to CPDN.
What a shame that the birthplace of Macs cannot provide work for Macs, and had to rely on Oxford Uni in UK to do so!!!!!!

Keith
(Still disappointedly banished from CPDN)

Since my last visit (6 hours ago), I have set up BOINC on Windows XP with Parallels Desktop on my MacBookPro and it is running CPDN Eu tasks apparently successfully although one of the 2 tasks running is frequently suspended "awaiting memory", but at least something is happening!!!

Keith

Well done Keith! That's a very positive response to a frustrating situation. There are Mac/Linux versions of HADAM3P (regional) doing alright so far in beta, so they should make their way to the main site in due course.

Dave

When you said "sent", I thought that you meant you'd finished what you had, and the final results had been returned to Oxford.

If indeed you meant that you received some new tasks while the server said there weren't any, that as Keith said, is just due to the normal re-issue process.
This is one of the many options of the server code that BOINC makes available to projects. Someone failed a task, the server saw that it hadn't used up it's "send" quota, and re-issued this failed task. All before some other part of the server code had a chance to say that one was available.

In which case the last, single, number on the end of the model name will be non-zero.

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Backups: Here

On looking you are correct, the last single numbers on the tasks are 4 and 6 respectively.

Ian

I had volunteered to be a beta-tester, but was so fed up with the situation in CPDN that I ducked out of that option.
If only I had known that I could have been happily crunching tasks in beta, I would have been satisfied instead of @leaving the sinking ship@ as I have done up until now!!!

Keith

Since my last visit (6 hours ago), I have set up BOINC on Windows XP with Parallels Desktop on my MacBookPro and it is running CPDN Eu tasks apparently successfully although one of the 2 tasks running is frequently suspended "awaiting memory", but at least something is happening!!!

Keith

Keith, thanks for that excellent idea. I have installed BOINC on the Win 7 virtual machine I have running on my Macbook Air. It's been running for about a day and a half now So far all is well. Parallels is seriously better than any other virtual machine solution I have tried. Maybe I'll convert to Mac!

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Derrick Ashby

To Derrick (and any other Parallels users on BOINC CPDN)

I am intrigued to see that of the 7 EU tasks I have had downloaded from my starting on Parallels for Mac Windows XP, one had a calculation error (and was replaced after the the first day's original 6 tasks sent), and when I looked at the 7 work unit folders, I find that every other task without exception has had either a download error or a calculation error. So the present position is that after 3 days I have 2 active tasks with some trickles credited and 4 tasks waiting in the queue cache.

On inspecting all of the various computers' full list of tasks, it would appear that the success rate of completed tasks is just as bad as the record with FAMOUS tasks. However (touch wood) my 2 active tasks seem to be progressing normally so far.

I would be interested to have any feedback on others who may be following the same path with Parallels for Mac. Of particular interest, has anyone else had "Waiting for memory" messages on Dual Core Macs? What sort of success rates are others with Parallels for Mac having as compared with the other tasks in their work units?

I may be speaking too soon, but if my tasks do complete successfully using Parallels,, why should all others fail. I am probably tempting providence by my aforesaid remarks, but ........

Keith

I think the "waiting for memory" message could be because you haven't assigned enough memory to your virtual machine. Either increase it or crunch only one hadam3p at a time by setting the VM's BOINC to use 50% of processors (and if you're still crunching another BOINC project on the host, I'd set its BOINC likewise.)

Just a couple of notes for any other virtual machine experimenters out there: I've seen CPDN tasks crash after a reboot when BOINC is installed as a service, maybe because of some timeout waiting for all the other disk activity to finish. Try changing the BOINC service from "automatic" to "automatic (delayed start)" and see if that helps. I know this only is applicable to Vista and 7, so if you're using XP I'd just install it to run under a normal user account, without automatic login.

The weatherathome applications (HADAM3P regional - EU/PNW/SAF) are now available on all platforms - i.e. Windows, Mac and Linux.

See here.

Great we got the EU tasks.
But unfortunately we seem to be back with the same long standing problem of Calculation errors yet again.
Is it really worthwhile continuing.

Please convince me.

Keith

There are a large number of suspends in both those errored tasks. This could be due to the 'Computing allowed while processor is less than X%' setting (on the 'preferences | processor usage' tab). By default x=25; set x=0 and check whether that improves matters.

All seems to be running smoothly CPDN on OSX (touch wood).
Third day running 2 EU tasks with 2 tasks in reserve.
Clocking up just under 800 credits per day
Looks as though they are going to finish, the tasks taking a total of about 5 days.

Previously much slower and temperamental when I was running on Parallels Windows XP at the same time.
Probably had not allowed the right amount of memory for each.

Keith