How to BOINC your way to glory with the X Universe team

[The_Abyss]

As with most forums or communities, some members group together for a common cause. For most, and the X-Universe is no exception, this started with the SETI program.

The X-Universe team has evovled, upgraded and dragged itself through several changes, and is now firmly in the corner of BOINC, the latest client with which you can contribute.

What does it do?

BOINC allows you to devote spare CPU resources from one or more PCs towards various causes, be it the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, a cure for cancer etc. Could your PC be the one that changes the world forever? Or will you help propell your team higher and higher? You might already be BOINCing and not be a member of the team.

How do I get BOINCing?

BOINC can be downloaded from here

It is very easy to set-up.

The X-Universe SETI team can be found here together with details on how to join.

How do I get those cool signature stats?

1. Head over to http://boinc.mundayweb.com/seti2/
2. Click on the "Register" link. Its on the top right of the page.
3. Create an account by providing your SETI@home Account ID. Note : It is not the 32 character ID you recieve via email from SETI@home. It Can be found on the "Your Account" page
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4. Enter your email address and push the "Create Account" button.
5. Check your email for an email giving you info on your new account. It will contain a password. Login using your details.
6. Head to the Colour Scheme part of the page and make suitable changes. If you wish to use an X-BTF bg image, use the following links :

http://img41.exs.cx/img41/9896/xsig1.gif
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http://img44.exs.cx/img44/9896/xsig1.gif
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Hit "Update Colours" or "Preview" accordingly to make your changes.
7. Get to the Egosoft forums and click on Profile.
8. In the sig dialog box type in your sig's URL. Note, the URL format has to be changed since these phpBB boards dont support the older formats. Use the instructions provided on your account page (just under the sig URL's dialogue box) or go here : http://boinc.mundayweb.com/seti2/altURL.php

Thats it!

You can use the same procedure for all project sigs. URL's for stat sigs on different projects can be found here : http://boinc.mundayweb.com/

BOINC and SETI in action

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Nuwanda has been kind enough to collate a list of other links below which will help you help us BOINC the X Universe team to success. SETI, although the main focus, is not the only cause we devote our CPUs to...

BOINC - Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing

SETI@Home related links :

http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/ - BOINC SETI@home
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/team_di ... amid=30770 - X-BTF SETI Team page
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/create_ ... amid=30770 - X-BTF SETI Team account creation page
http://www.setisynergy.com/stats/teams.php?team=30770 - X-BTF SETI Team SetiSynergy stats page
http://boinc.mundayweb.com/seti2/ - Seti@Home Boinc Stats Counter by Neil Munday

LHC@Home related links :

http://lhcathome.cern.ch/ - LHC@home
http://lhcathome.cern.ch/team_display.php?teamid=350 - X-BTF LHC Team page
http://www.setisynergy.com/stats/teams. ... roject=lhc - X-BTF LHC Team SetiSynergy stats page
http://boinc.mundayweb.com/one/ - All-In-One BOINC Stats Counter by Neil Munday

Pirates@Home related links :

http://pirates.vassar.edu/ - Pirates@Home
http://pirates.vassar.edu/team_display.php?teamid=127 - X-BTF Pirates Team page
http://pirates.vassar.edu/team_join_form.php?id=127 - X-BTF Pirates Team account creation pagehttp://www.setisynergy.com/stats/teams. ... roject=pir - X-BTF Pirates Team SetiSynergy stats page
http://www.boinc.mundayweb.com/pirates/index.php - Pirates@Home Boinc Stats Counter by Neil Munday

Predictor@Home related links :

http://predictor.scripps.edu/ - Predictor@Home Site
http://predictor.scripps.edu/team_displ ... teamid=644 - XBTF Predictor Team Page
http://boinc.mundayweb.com/predictor/ - Predictor@Home Boinc Stats Counter by Neil Munday

ClimatePrediction.Net related links :

http://www.climateprediction.net/ - ClimatePrediction.Net Site
http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnb ... eamid=1523 - XBTF ClimatePrediction.Net Team Page
http://boinc.mundayweb.com/cpdn/ - ClimatePrediction.Net Boinc Stats Counter by Neil Munday

Miscelleneous BOINC Pages :

http://www.setisynergy.com/stats/ - BOINC Statistics for the WORLD
http://www.boincstats.com/index.php - BOINCstats.com - BOINC Statistics Page
http://www.boinc.dk/ - BOINC.dk
http://teamocuk.com/ - Team OcUK

How can I start a BOINC client on my Linux PC?

Note : Before you install a new BOINC client, make sure that you have killed any previous BOINC clients and have removed all old BOINC code in the BOINC directory.

1. Download the gzipped BOINC client (boinc_4.xx_i686-pc-linux-gnu.gz).
2. Create a directory on a local disk in your PC (e.g., /tmp/boinc_client ) and copy the downloaded file to this directory.
3. Unzip the gzipped BOINC client using the command:
gunzip boinc_4.xx_i686-pc-linux-gnu.gz
4. Change the permission for the BOINC client to make it executable:
chmod 755 boinc_4.xx_i686-pc-linux-gnu
5. Run the executable under by typing:
./boinc_4.xx_i686-pc-linux-gnu
Now, it will require two pieces of information:
i. the project URL -> http://setiathome.berkeley.edu
ii. your account key -> this is the 31 character key you recieved in your mail

If you want to run the BOINC client as a background process, type Ctrl-z followed by: bg.
Run like this, the BOINC client produces several output messages. How to start a BOINC client as a background service (called a daemon in linux/unix) will be discussed in the next section. This will also prevent all the output messages of appearing in your command window.

How can I install my BOINC client as a background process which always runs even if I log out of my PC?

1. Go through the previous boinc client installation procedure.
2. Download the boinc_cli script here
3. Stop the BOINC client if it is currently running.
4. Copy the script boinc_cli to the directory in which you have installed the BOINC client (e.g., /tmp/boinc_client) and make it executable by typing:
chmod 755 ./boinc_cli
5. Now start BOINC as a daemon by typing:
./boinc_cli start

If you close the command line window where you typed the command or log out completely, your PC will continue to donate cycles and you keep on receiving your well-earned credits.

6. You can stop the daemon by typing:
./boinc_cli_linux stop

IMPORTANT: The script boinc_cli_linux has been configured for a BOINC client which has been installed in /tmp/boinc_client and with the name boinc_4.13_i686-pc-linux-gnu. If your BOINC client is in another directory or has another name, change the following two entries in boinc_cli using your directory and boinc client name before using the script.

BOINC_EXE="/tmp/boinc_client/boinc_3.02_i686-pc-linux-gnu"
BOINC_DIR="/tmp/boinc_client"

If you need to add any extra parameters while starting up the client (e.g., -allow_remote_gui_rpc or -return_results_immediately) add it to the following line :

BOINC_PARAMS="-return_results_immediately"

Thats about all the relevant links we got....until Team X-BTF enter more projects. I think Einstein@home should be next once the project goes live (around 2005)

Happy BOINCing!

[The_Abyss]

Unstickied - we gave it nearly a full year.