If people want more lead time, they simply maintain a larger cache. The new release has been posted already, but I've not requested a single WU since then, so I still have time to download "in advance" if I wish.

Just a thought, there ARE some files that the project downloads only once... would it be possible to break up the executable in a similar mannar? So you'd have a core of say 2/3rds of it which doesn't change very often? THAT would really cut the download size. Just breaking it in to 3-5 pieces would help a lot... as long as there's a way to refresh them when needed. Perhaps by changing the names? I'm really not familiar with how BOINC handles the files.

The way to do this would be to page off parts of the program to .so / .dll files, making sure that the program knew to lok for them in the relevant BOINC directory / folder rather than in the system folder.

This is particularly suitable for Rosetta, where the programmers & scientists keep adding new code but almost never remove old code from the app. Each new feature would have its own .so or .dll

The app would need to know that it needed these extra files - or if you can't tell BOINC directly that an app needs a specific file then BOINC needs to be told that each task using that app needs the file(s) for the new shared lib(s).

And of course the .so / .dll files need to be "sticky"

And when a version of a .so or .dll file is superseded, at some stage the server needs to be told to tell clients to delete the obsolete version.

In my opinion this would be feasible. The first Rosetta version to be split in this way would save no download time at all, and might even suffer from bugs in the implemetntation of the devolvement into spearate libraries.

Once such teething troubles were solved on Ralph, then the next mainstream Rosetta would still not save any downloads, as that would be the one to introduce the new system to the mainstream users. The Rosetta release after that would be the first to see the benefit.

Rosetta versions would only load a stub executable, maybe one or two new .so / .dll files that had changed, but would not need to re-download any of the code in the unchanged .so / .dll files.

It is a fair amount of work for the programmers. It is something that would benefit some users, and not noticeably benefit others. Only the programmers can advise whether it would be a good use of their time.

R~~

5.48 isn't available from the following:

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/download/next_release/

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5.48 isn't available from the following:

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/download/next_release/

It is however available here https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/download/

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