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Well. . we have two sets of instructions posted:

http://hfs.washington.edu/boinc

However, they haven't drawn the attention we hoped. An installation package which takes care of all the details might be a bonus for those who don't want to go through the whole process.

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Well, aside from missing all of the software install tasks ... I can only say that you can lead a drink to water but you cannot make it horse ...

Seriously, people are either into this or not. Want more people, get the teachers to make it part of their classes.

I taught college computer courses and used BOINC as a powerful example of distributed computing ... did not sell too many, but, I tried ...

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I believe that CPDN has done (or is doing) something like this.

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BOINC WIKI

Well. . we have two sets of instructions posted:

http://hfs.washington.edu/boinc

However, they haven't drawn the attention we hoped. An installation package which takes care of all the details might be a bonus for those who don't want to go through the whole process.

I believe the main thrust of the new 5.2.* BOINC software upgrade is to make it much easier to sign up and join projects. Although they are still finalizing the software (see http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php?dev=1) I believe they anticipate making it public soon.

I think the BOINC developers had the same concern that you have, that the sign-up process is too involved (and I admit you do have to love these types of projects to be motivated enough to go through with it), and that many more people might join up with a simpler process.

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Regards,
Bob P.

...creating an executable that only prompts where you'd like to install the app, then installs BOINC as a service and attaches to a default user?

It might be me, but I see a big problem with this. Doesn't the person who installs the executable (especially as a service!) need to be at least a Power User or an Administrator on a Windows network? How many of your standard users are one of those?

The other things I see it dropping over are things like:
* port settings
* proxy settings
* the MSI installer

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It might be me, but I see a big problem with this. Doesn't the person who installs the executable need to be at least a Power User or an Administrator on a Windows network? How many of your standard users are one of the above?

The group of folks I'm considering are the 5000 students in our residence halls. Almost all of them own their own computer, for which they'd have a fast internet connection and administrator rights. If we can offer them a single file which only asks for an installation directory, it might interest more folks than our current instructions have been able to attact.

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The attaches to a default user? would still be the problem. You can't use Boinc without having registered to a project. The new Boinc 5.2 version has an attach to wizard which doesn't need the 32 character authenticator key anymore when attaching to a project.

Yet you still can't make one client for 5000 people, since only the computer that downloads the work units can upload them. You could tell all 5000 others to use your email address and password to attach to your account. But what's the use of a team then? ;)

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The attaches to a default user? would still be the problem. You can't use Boinc without having registered to a project. The new Boinc 5.2 version has an attach to wizard which doesn't need the 32 character authenticator key anymore when attaching to a project.

Yet you still can't make one client for 5000 people, since only the computer that downloads the work units can upload them. You could tell all 5000 others to use your email address and password to attach to your account. But what's the use of a team then? ;)

For our department, we used our windows domain to push the client out to all our machines using the same auth code. David Cox did the same thing with their lab machines. The students we're trying to solicit probably aren't too concerned with statistics (other than competing between buildings, which we could create an install/user for each one). We'll make it clear if they would like their own account, they can use the existing instructions. I'm hoping a generic install will get users to join that wouldn't have otherwise.

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I'm hoping a generic install will get users to join that wouldn't have otherwise.

Isn't it easier for your situation to install it as a standard service/software running for the university, then only change it to the user's account for as long as he/she is using that computer?

Or am I misreading what your intend is?

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Or am I misreading what your intend is?

Yes :) This is intended for the 5000 college students who live in the dormitories on campus. We're hoping to get them to install it on their personal computers within their rooms. They are not university owned machines.

-Ethan

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An install that did the standard BOINC setup and then asked for the email address and password for the Rosetta account would probably be the way to go. It ought to be possible to modify the standard BOINC MSI to do what you need to do.

The problem with a shared account is that all the settings are the same for everyone, and anyone can change them. With a few hundred people (just guessing at the size of your dorms) sharing an account, this would not be pretty.

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BOINC WIKI

The problem with a shared account is that all the settings are the same for everyone, and anyone can change them. With a few hundred people (just guessing at the size of your dorms) sharing an account, this would not be pretty.

I had planned to create the account and set it to very conservative settings. . 1 cpu max, no power when on battery, 25% of virtual memory, etc. If the account info is wrapped up in the msi, it would be difficult for most folks to dig through it and find the account key.

Thanks for bringing these things up. . part of asking this question is trying to find any problems with implementing it.

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Using the msi you should be able to include an account*.xml file in the install. This will automatically attach the client to the account. See here for wiki instructions.

There are still the other problems mentioned with having one shared account, and as far as I know the only thing to do about them is check things frequently to make sure the settings are still correct.

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BOINC WIKI

BOINCing since 2002/12/8

I didn't want to expose my computer to an experimental program like Boinc which downloads all kinds of applications, by installing or running it as an administrator, so I installed Boinc on a test computer with Windows 98, then I copied Program FilesBoinc to my Windows XP computer, where I created a separate user without administrator permissions for Boinc. The only thing I needed to do as an administrator was making Program FilesBoinc writable for Boinc, by typing in a command window:
cacls "Program FilesBoinc" /t /e /g boincuser:f
Then I made a shortcut to the Boinc executable in the startup section of that user's start menu and it worked.
You might write a program that does the same.
Installing Boinc creates some entries in the registry and some files in the Windows directory, but these are not necessary for running it.

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I didn't want to expose my computer to an experimental program like Boinc which downloads all kinds of applications, by installing or running it as an administrator, so I installed Boinc on a test computer with Windows 98, then I copied Program FilesBoinc to my Windows XP computer, where I created a separate user without administrator permissions for Boinc. The only thing I needed to do as an administrator was making Program FilesBoinc writable for Boinc, by typing in a command window:
cacls "Program FilesBoinc" /t /e /g boincuser:f
Then I made a shortcut to the Boinc executable in the startup section of that user's start menu and it worked.
You might write a program that does the same.
Installing Boinc creates some entries in the registry and some files in the Windows directory, but these are not necessary for running it.

The C runtime libraries need to be in the system32 directory, you may have had them already from some other application.

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BOINC WIKI

BOINCing since 2002/12/8

Creating simple file that install BOINC as a service, and sign up for Rosetta with "general" setting is a great idea. User will no need to go throu the account creation process, there would be no icon in systray(hopefully, or it would be hidden?), I could myself talk into few friends to install that, JUST MAKE that file PUBLICALLY AVAILABLE!
Most likely they would forget about BOINC in a week ar two and Rosetta will live on theyr computers forever!

DO IT - we need it!

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TestPilot, AKA Administrator

Well, I am doing *MY* part, I have a new machine on the way (a slow AMD I think) that I will be standing up as my Linux test environment. The early plan is to run Rosetta@Home and Einstein@Home on it for awhile as the only projects.

Later, I may add a couple more for safety sake.

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Though much of this entire thread seems to be about how to solicit the help of the captive 5,000 students at U of W, one could extrapolate the theme and postulate that there is a need to attract more crunchers to distributed computing (DC) in general, whether Rosetta or some other project.

I personally never heard of DC before August when I was reading my monthly issue of Sky and Telescope magazine. Therein was an article about the search for gravity waves; the article ended with a solicitation to join Einstein at Home project. I did the online research and have been a fervent 24x7 cruncher since August. I expanded from 1 project to 3... about all I can handle realistically.

So I wonder, if attracting NEW users is of concern, maybe a new thread ought to be started to suggest ways to achieve it. I for one suggest advertising in PC World or PC Magazine, where geeks presumably hang out. They don't care about science I think, but I suspect they do care about their toys and the idea of accumulating credits and rank (ego stroking). In the end a person's reason for donating cpu time is irrelevant, only that it happens.

One more thing. I tried to sell this DC concept to my daughter. If she is typical she is concerned that DC may corrupt her precious machine, that trouble makers abound out there just waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting PC owner. This feeling may or may not be justified, but it should be addressed for those who are wary.

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