Alternative BOINC Manager

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all,

Has anyone used BOINC Tasks, instead of BOINC Manager ?

Info here:

http://efmer.com/b/boinctasks

and download it from here:

http://efmer.com/b/boinctasks_download

Any input would be appreciated

regards
Tim

[UBT - Chris]

I'd be happy to try it out

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Chris,

OK - I've taken the plunge on one PC and all I can say is that I'm glad I let most of the tasks on the PC complete, before trying out BOINCTasks.

If you want to give it a go, feel free, but be aware of the following:

Any WU's you had already on the PC are basically deleted...and once BT "picks up" the various projects you'd joined with BM, it then gets to work on contacting each and every project and downloading the specific apps for each project as well as downloading a single new WU, from each one.

So, best install BT if you only have only joined a couple of projects AND you've finished crunching all the WU's in your cache.


It'll take me a while to get back to crunching for the specific projects I want to crunch for, as I really want to see how BT copes with all the various WU's from all the projects it can connect to.

It's going to be an interesting next few days, while it gets on with tackling numerous WU's...

The interface of BT does look a little bit "clunky" but boy does it offer a lot more detail on what's going on...colourful indicators to show WU's are being crunched, which tasks are CPU, GPU and non-intensive plus a whole wealth of other stuff.

More updates in a day or so's time

regards
Tim

[scole of TSBT]

I've installed it on several systems and it left all projects and WUs in place. I don't use BAM though. I like it. I have 13 clients running at home and this allows me to view all systems at once and control them without having to connect to each client individually.

[UBT - Chris]

It wouldn't work for me, also I agree that it would be amazing if it worked

[UBT - Timbo]

I've installed it on several systems and it left all projects and WUs in place. I don't use BAM though. I like it. I have 13 clients running at home and this allows me to view all systems at once and control them without having to connect to each client individually.

Hi Steve,

thanks for your input.

It actually took me about an hour to get running - mainly I think (with hindsight) because I'd installed it on my main PC and I'd forgotten how long it takes for BM to start up, due to the number of projects that this PC is attached too...

And I got concerned that BT wasn't starting quickly enough (due to all these projects) and I was then trying to figure out HOW BT knew which directories to use for the projects data files....as there's no "settings" section to cover this.

So, what with messing around with the directory tree and moving stuff around on the hard drive, just to get something working - so that's maybe how I lost some "Ready to start" WU's.

One question you might know the answer to: This PC is running Win XP Pro (still) - so I'm trying out BT v1.49 as that is the last version that will still work on XP. So, how do I upgrade the underlying BOINC program, as and when they bring out a new version?

Does one still have to upgrade BM to a new version, even if you don't use BM anymore?

regards
Tim

[scole of TSBT]

If BT connects to and controls other systems running newer versions of Boinc, then it shouldn't be an issue to install the same version of Boinc on the XP system. Wouldn't think so anyway.

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Steve,

OK - thanks for that.

I have one other PC at home, but that runs Win XP too....so that won't be much use.

My laptop runs Vista and I don't think Vista and Win XP get on too well between themselves (IIRC), as M$ changed the networking protocols between those editions of Windows...

I'll have to check and see if they will work together, as I know that with XP SP2 installed they didn't - and you needed SP3 for them to "see" each other over Ethernet. And although both XP machines are now at SP3 level, I've not needed to network the laptop.

Of course, I could always download BM and then just copy over the BOINC-specific files

regards
Tim

[scole of TSBT]

Do you have your laptop's IP in the XP's remote_hosts.cfg and vise versa? Have you tried using BoincManager on each system to connect to the BoincClient on the other systems? I've had to use IP and port to connect to some systems using a host name like 192.168.1.121:31416

[nick]

is anyone still using this?

is it worth switching?

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Nick,

I was using BOINC Tasks quite successfully until late Spring last year, when I had a hard drive failure, which lead to me having to re-install XP, plus all more programs.

As a result, I didn't re-install BOINC Tasks, mainly due to wanting to get the PC up and running again without losing anything - and I wasn't 100% sure as to what caused the HDD to fail...so, staying with what I knew was "OK" (software-wise) was a factor.

I still have BOINC Tasks as a ZIP file, so I might re-load it again and see how it goes. It certainly seemed to work well last year

regards
Tim

[nick]

did you see any boost in efficacy? or its just more of an multi pc easy monitor.

[UBT - Timbo]

did you see any boost in efficacy? or its just more of an multi pc easy monitor.

Hi Nick

It was more the latter...the bells and whistles of BOINC Tasks goes to show what BOINC Manager *could* be like, if they developed it a bit better...

One thing I do like in BT is the ways in which the different tasks and applications are displayed - so you can see of your CPU tasks need attention and same with the GPU ones It also gives a better view of how much time is left for each set of tasks for a specific project - again, very useful to see this info.

At the time, I didn't get a chance to use BT for the multi-PC monitoring, over a network, as my work "farm" was a mixture of different PC's, which were all fed into a KVM's...so it was easier to switch between PC's and control each one directly.

regards
Tim