Thanks for pointing that out, I found a wide image incorporated into one of the posts and have now hidden it, so the margins on the thread should be better. If you get a chance, it would be worth mentioning that type of problem on the BOINC boards.

Mikus, please join the discussion on Linux preemption issues in this thread.

mikus, yes, the BOINC manager still seems to have some quirks on Linux. I can only suggest you keep current on the BOINC updates. But last I've seen there still seem to be occaisional problems there as well.

From this, should I conclude that Rosetta is not interested in one of its applications experiencing a segment violation, nor that whereas my expectation is that a failing task would go away, this one just sat there (holding a CPU resource that ought to have been released to other ready tasks.)

Not at all. I was simply trying to point out that BOINC manager controls which tasks run and when, so I'm not sure there is anything that the Rosetta team can do to improve things. It's probably going to require a fix to the BOINC code so that it can pick up and schedule other work accordingly.

mikus, yes, the BOINC manager still seems to have some quirks on Linux. I can only suggest you keep current on the BOINC updates. But last I've seen there still seem to be occaisional problems there as well.

It seems the client is just trying to assure you've got work to crunch on during the time it will be without a network connection, which sounds directly in-line with your objectives. So I clearly must be missing your point. Are you saying it should have downloaded LESS WUs? Are you actually having problems completing them before the deadline? Or is it just BOINC's concern about it that is disturbing?

I personally think the *server* ought to have downloaded 10 or 8 WUs, thereby allowing me a "buffer" (for me meeting the deadline of whichever of these WUs will be completed last) of 2 or 3 days.

[Added by edit: OR the server could set a deadline of 7 days from the download for the *first* of those WUs, but a deadline of (7 days + 3 days) for those WUs whose crunching will be PRECEDED by an estimated three days of crunching (of other WUs that were downloaded first within this same "download assemblage").]

If I hear you right, if it had only given you the 8 or 10 WUs, you'd have been done crunching them in 4 or 5 days, gone a day or two without establishing an internet connection and then reported them all in when you sit down to that PC and dial up to the net. That was my point about how it's trying to keep you with enough WUs to KEEP you crunching the whole time. If you do want to shut the machine off, or be positive that you NEVER pass a deadline, then your cache size (and therefore your use of that machine really) is larger than fits a project with a 7 day deadline.

... They can't really tag the deadline to be 7 days from the 3 days of expected crunching on the first WUs... because that was the whole point, the shortened the deadlines because they want specific results RETURNED sooner. And that approach doesn't get them returned sooner... and your next connect time would be past that deadline anyway unless they WERE crunched in the first week because nothing went wrong.

...making my computer overcommitted (on paper) before it even starts on the work... I am forced by the shorter deadlines to shorten my queue size, it is MUCH EASIER for me to simply stop participating in Rosetta.

It is the client that decides how much work to request. If your WU runtime preference is accurately reflected in the initial estimated runtime to completion, then it will work out just fine. BOINC goes in to a bit of a panic there for a half day or so, but what harm is it to run in earliest deadline first mode?

It seems the client is just trying to assure you've got work to crunch on during the time it will be without a network connection, which sounds directly in-line with your objectives. So I clearly must be missing your point. Are you saying it should have downloaded LESS WUs? Are you actually having problems completing them before the deadline? Or is it just BOINC's concern about it that is disturbing?