Currently, this project, based at Berkeley, takes data from just one radio telescope. In the future, might more telescopes be used ? Would the application software need modifying to handle data from several telescopes ? Would Berkeley remain the hub, or would other centres round the world be needed ? Will it be possible to end the practice of physically transporting data on disk drives ?

Just a few thoughts...

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AFAIK the Berkeley Astronomy Department and its Radio Astronomy Laboratory already get data from the Allen Telescope Array. The SETI Institute has recently launched a project called SetiQuest which aims to offer those data in a distributed computing effort not based on the BOINC platform. Just for curiosity, I downloaded their OpenSonATA binaries, which are Linux only, on my Linux box, but when I discovered I should run them as superuser (root) I said no, thanks. Too dangerous.
Tullio

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AFAIK the Berkeley Astronomy Department and its Radio Astronomy Laboratory already get data from the Allen Telescope Array. The SETI Institute has recently launched a project called SetiQuest which aims to offer those data in a distributed computing effort not based on the BOINC platform. Just for curiosity, I downloaded their OpenSonATA binaries, which are Linux only, on my Linux box, but when I discovered I should run them as superuser (root) I said no, thanks. Too dangerous.
Tullio

So the SETI Institute won't use BOINC ? And THEY are looking for intelligence ? ROFL !

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So the SETI Institute won't use BOINC ? And THEY are looking for intelligence ? ROFL !

i agree with you, but I won't expand. I've been insulted enough for having dared to criticize the SETI Institute,
Tullio

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So the SETI Institute won't use BOINC ? And THEY are looking for intelligence ? ROFL !

i agree with you, but I won't expand. I've been insulted enough for having dared to criticize the SETI Institute

In one way, I agree that it is bad to divide resources between two competing projects.

Then again, will we gain something new from the competing project?

I think that more importantly, we gain choice. We also gain competition. In some ways, to use Boinc as the only way is as unhealthy as Microsoft.


Hopefully, we'll find something new using a new way!

Happy crunchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Time will tell, but I won't run any program as root.
Tullio

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Is the the Seti Quest you are referring to?

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Is the the Seti Quest you are referring to?

Yes.

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Is the the Seti Quest you are referring to?

Yes.

OK this is the 1st I've heard of it. I will follow this thread with interest.

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Time will tell, but I won't run any program as root.

I agree on that case also.

Running as root certainly shouldn't be the case. Any clues as to why root privileges are needed? (Usual lazy programming?)

Is it worth a look yet? Or is it all "alpha" test?


Happy crunchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Time will tell, but I won't run any program as root.

I agree on that case also.

Running as root certainly shouldn't be the case. Any clues as to why root privileges are needed? (Usual lazy programming?)

Is it worth a look yet? Or is it all "alpha" test?


Happy crunchin',
Martin

I don't know. I downloaded a tarball on August 13 and unpacked it in one directory. It looks very professional and well documented. The instructions say you must have a 64 bit CPU with at least 2 cores, 4 GB RAM and SuSE Linux 11.2. My Linux box, with Opteron 1210 and SuSE Linux 11.1 PAE meets all their conditions (I have 5 GB RAM). But the instructions say you must run the program as superuser, and I am not going to do it. Maybe a virtual machine could do it, but mine is running Solaris. There is also a text with a SETI Open Source License Agreement, but I am not a lawyer and won't discuss it. Today the tarball is no longer available on their site and maybe they are having second thoughts. The tarball is OpenSonATA_1.0.tar.Z.
Tullio

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Time will tell, but I won't run any program as root.

I agree on that case also.

Running as root certainly shouldn't be the case. Any clues as to why root privileges are needed? (Usual lazy programming?)

Is it worth a look yet? Or is it all "alpha" test?

I don't know. I downloaded a tarball on August 13 and unpacked it in one directory. It looks very professional and well documented. The instructions say you must have a 64 bit CPU with at least 2 cores, 4 GB RAM and SuSE Linux 11.2. ... There is also a text with a SETI Open Source License Agreement, but I am not a lawyer ...

Well, on their website there is:

"our open sourcing process will take another one year"

Sounds like the usual legalese nightmare quagmire of software licensing...

There must be a better way for software...


Keep searchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Well, on their website there is:

"our open sourcing process will take another one year"

Sounds like the usual legalese nightmare quagmire of software licensing...

There must be a better way for software...


Keep searchin',
Martin

The ATA is getting 59 TB of data per hour. Multiply this for all hours in a year and imagine how to process this workload. I think they are looking to cloud computing (Amazon?). I cannot understand why they can't use the BOINC platform for at least a part of the task, using also Windows PCs. I am a Linux user, but we are a minority and SuSE users, like myself, are a minority of the minority. All this is difficult to understand.
Tullio

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The ATA is getting 59 TB of data per hour. Multiply this for all hours in a year and imagine how to process ...

I suspect that would swamp everyone's broadband!

Still, it might be worth the effort for them to release a small proportion of their data as an open outreach 'teaser'.


On a related search, I've stumbled across:

"analysis ... of the setiQuest Kepler Exoplanet 4 data file with the baudline signal analyzer"

Rather intriguing and all the more so for the youtube ghostly heartbeat video of the data. Real? Or artificial artefacts of the data collection? Or even pickup of a Radio Ham experimenting with moon bounce slow-scan TV?!

More interesting is the Baudline analysis package itself and the interpretation of the data file... Spectacular stuff.

The analysis also shows very nicely why we have a 'trough' in the s@h data at exactly 1.42 GHz.


Keep searchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I think the magnitude of the task involved in processing the ATA data is similar to that involving the data rate coming out of the LHC. At the BOINC workshop this month's end in London dr.Ben Segal of CERN shall give a talk about BOINC-VM and Volunteer Cloud Computing. Maybe the people at SetiQuest could be interested.
Tullio

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AFAIK the Berkeley Astronomy Department and its Radio Astronomy Laboratory already get data from the Allen Telescope Array. The SETI Institute has recently launched a project called SetiQuest which aims to offer those data in a distributed computing effort not based on the BOINC platform. Just for curiosity, I downloaded their OpenSonATA binaries, which are Linux only, on my Linux box, but when I discovered I should run them as superuser (root) I said no, thanks. Too dangerous.
Tullio

So the SETI Institute won't use BOINC ? And THEY are looking for intelligence ? ROFL !

I've been involved in setiQuest as a participant for a few months now, and I have no idea what all this hate that seem to exist on this forum towards the SETI Institute is about. Using BOINC has come up several times on the forums, but at this point it simply isn't necessary because the data volumes we're working on are small. A few dozen of gigabytes has been released to so far. Also, BOINC/SETI@home and setiQuest has completely different aims. SETI@home runs a fixed set of algorithms over a large dataset. setiQuest seeks to develop new algorithms, using a small dataset for testing and evaluation.

Please try and open your eyes at little bit instead just of sitting behind your computer screen and assuming the worst about everyone. I encourage you to join if you are interested in data analysis and algorithm design.

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Time will tell, but I won't run any program as root.

I agree on that case also.

Running as root certainly shouldn't be the case. Any clues as to why root privileges are needed? (Usual lazy programming?)

Is it worth a look yet? Or is it all "alpha" test?


Happy crunchin',
Martin

OpenSonATA requires root privileges to run in this release - arguably due to lazy programming. It was designed to run on hardware at the Allen Telescope Array, and not for general consumption.

SonATA is not a distributed computing environment like BOINC. It is the software which the SETI Institute runs on the ATA to perform SETI analysis in real-time on the telescope data stream. It is released in the hope that the open source community will help the institute improve their search strategies and detection algorithms.

There is not that much to look at yet, but I believe they are on the verge of the second release which will include source code for some components.

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I have no hate towards setiquest, only curiosity. I shall watch their effort to build an open source application since I am a Linux user, but I still cannot understand why they won't make use of the BOINC platform. as IBM has done with its World Community Grid. I am a LHC user and I am looking forward to get the CERN Virtual Machine which dr.Ben Segal of CERN has promised to develop.
Tullio

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I have no hate towards setiquest, only curiosity. I shall watch their effort to build an open source application since I am a Linux user, but I still cannot understand why they won't make use of the BOINC platform. as IBM has done with its World Community Grid. I am a LHC user and I am looking forward to get the CERN Virtual Machine which dr.Ben Segal of CERN has promised to develop.
Tullio

There has not been any decision to not use BOINC. I don't how this idea has come about. BOINC just solves another problem than what setiQuest is currently trying to solve. We don't use massive amounts of compute power.

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There has not been any decision to not use BOINC. I don't how this idea has come about. BOINC just solves another problem than what setiQuest is currently trying to solve. We don't use massive amounts of compute power.

Since I am curious I have downloaded a System Development pdf presentation and I have seen a page with Cloud Computing and Google/Microsoft/Amazon logos. This seems to contradict your statement.
Tullio

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