Ideas for future BOINC
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Profile bushrat
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Message 847621 - Posted: 1 Jan 2009, 4:03:20 UTC

I know I can't ask for much, but there are few things that I would like to see done to next version of BOINC.

- Shell/Core design - instead of downloading new version of BOINC everytime it comes out, I would suggest creating shell program and core seperate. That way, everyone would be up-to-date on new version. Once a week/month, BOINC would check for new version, and if one is available, it would download it and install it.

- Implement optimized clients - BOINC developers should choose the best optimized client, and make it part of downloaded core (see above). I belive current version of BOINC has capability to detect what type of CPU someone is running, and based on that, optimized client for particular CPU type can be automaticcaly downloaded.

If anyone else has any ideas, post them here. They may get in the next version.

If I am wrong on something, please correct me.
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Message 847758 - Posted: 1 Jan 2009, 15:01:03 UTC - in response to Message 847621.

- Shell/Core design - instead of downloading new version of BOINC everytime it comes out, I would suggest creating shell program and core seperate. That way, everyone would be up-to-date on new version. Once a week/month, BOINC would check for new version, and if one is available, it would download it and install it.


BOINC is already separated into Core Client (BOINC.EXE) and the BOINC Manager (BOINCMGR.EXE).

There has been a lot of concern expressed about auto-downloading of the BOINC software as a lot of companies and universities use BOINC, and most System Administrators do not like software that auto-updates in case it introduces new incompatibilities with their existing software, so they usually like to test the software first before it gets upgraded.

I have suggested myself that they build the auto-download feature into the program but leave it disabled by default - but I can only imagine that many there would be many posts asking why. It would seem too many people are spoiled by auto-updated software on their own machines and they forget about the corporations and universities that also run it too.

- Implement optimized clients - BOINC developers should choose the best optimized client, and make it part of downloaded core (see above). I belive current version of BOINC has capability to detect what type of CPU someone is running, and based on that, optimized client for particular CPU type can be automaticcaly downloaded.


The problem here is that BOINC only detects what the OS reports. So your brand new Core i7 with SSE4.1 capabilities running under XP? Well XP only supports and reports up to SSE2, so that is what would get installed. Vista only reports up to SSE3, so that excludes SSSE3 (notice the extra S) and SSE4.1/SSE4a.

Also, with SETI being open source, any optimizations made in the third-party code can be implemented into the stock code - in fact many optimization have already made their way into the current stock SETI MultiBeam app.
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Questions and Answers : Wish list : Ideas for future BOINC

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