I wish I would have been given a choice

Don't take us wrong, probably all of us hate automatic updates to Windows, browsers, etc. (e.g. I use SRWare Iron instead of Google Chrome to avoid automatic updates)

But new versions of science apps (which do other type of research) can't be avoided if the project stops distributing the old type of tasks (and if the user want to stay with the project)
(it's like if your country changes the currency - you can't continue to use the old currency much longer)

All projects do this.

Look your Einstein@Home tasks:
http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/results.php?hostid=6212307

They are "Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo) v1.33 (BRP4SSE)"

Looking here:
http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/apps.php

... you can see when this app was first distributed (at some point after that date this app was automatically downloaded to your computer)
Windows/x86 1.33 (BRP4SSE) 25 Jan 2013 10:04:33 UTC

Your Computer joined Einstein@Home on: "Created 27 Nov 2012 0:15:14 UTC")
http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=6212307

And ~2 months later 'your' BOINC automatically downloaded this new app from Einstein@Home servers.

---

 


- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 

Seems everyone is still confused. It has nothing to do with Seti@home applications. It has nothing to do with what BOINC client software is on your machine. It is what BOINC SERVER version is hosting the project. IIRC when BOINC first went to supporting two applications on a project, someone had to make a choice what the default action was for the new project. That happened a long time ago. IIRC that was done when the first AstroPulse work units came online. There was lots and lots of bitching and carping on the boards at the time. The default chosen was when a new project is added the user wants to run these workunits. That is correct from a science standpoint. After all the carping and bitching was over with and other projects having more than one science app, Dr. A put in the switch for "if no work available run other applications." I think he also adjusted the server code so that if that switch was set to no, when a new application was added the default was not to process, and if set yes the default was to process, but don't quote me on that and it could have changed.

As Jord points out, if you use anonymous platform you can't get any work except for the applications you specify in your appinfo file. BTW you can run standard apps on anonymous platform, you don't have to have optimized ones.

The reality is you had and still have the choice. You just didn't know you did or how to exercise the choice. Good user level BOINC documentation is rather lacking.

[Jord, before you get upset, I am saying user doc, I know there is excellent doc for it if you have some programming experience. But for the rank user, it leaves a lot to assumption. It really could stand a hired tech writer to crank out a BOINC for Dummies book.]

---

The reality is you had and still have the choice. You just didn't know you did or how to exercise the choice. Good user level BOINC documentation is rather lacking.

[Jord, before you get upset, I am saying user doc, I know there is excellent doc for it if you have some programming experience. But for the rank user, it leaves a lot to assumption. It really could stand a hired tech writer to crank out a BOINC for Dummies book.]

Someone or a group of people can write more thorough BOINC documentation, but you still can't make people read it.

Seems everyone is still confused.

Everyone?
You mean these people? ;)
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/user_search.php?action=search&search_string=everyone&country=any&profile=either&team=either&search_type=date&action=Search

---

 


- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 

I think people are missing the following bit:

MELund
Joined: 8 Mar 02

Back then it would have been Seti Classic. I don't recall Classic having auto-update build-in.

I know for a fact that Seti Classic didn't have an autoupdate. I still have the 3.03 binary somewhere and a bunch of old work unit files. It's interesting to crunch those old work units just as a test on modern Intel hardware to see how fast they now run.

---

The reality is you had and still have the choice. You just didn't know you did or how to exercise the choice. Good user level BOINC documentation is rather lacking.

[Jord, before you get upset, I am saying user doc, I know there is excellent doc for it if you have some programming experience. But for the rank user, it leaves a lot to assumption. It really could stand a hired tech writer to crank out a BOINC for Dummies book.]

I don't get upset so easily.

But if you want to write documentation, you can do so in the BOINC User Wiki. To get an account on it, email David or Rom. Or if you want to help out on the BOINC FAQ Wiki, give me a PM. ;)

---

After downloading and running version 7 I'm experiencing erratic operation of my system. I'm running Windows 7

Is that Bonic V7 or allowing seti to run it's V7 app?

---

BOINC V7

Seems everyone is still confused.

It would seem so. And it also seems I need to write up a timeline to remind everyone when certain features became available.

Yes, 2002-2005 could have been SETI@Home classic (and yes, there was no auto-update feature for SETI Classic). However, BIONC was taking early sign-ups for those ready to make the jump. I, myself, didn't hesitate and jumped as soon as I saw it mentioned on the SETI@home home page.

One of the much-debated features of the new BOINC system was the ability to automatically upgrade the science applications. Some people were against it, but many felt it was a good idea. It was suggested to add the same feature to BOINC, but that idea was dropped due to much push-back.

Around the end of 2005, SETI Classic came to an end and they stopped sending out workunits to the old stand-alone application. Matt Lebofsky had this to say to everyone complaining about BOINC.

In 2006, SETI@home released the SETI@home "Enhanced" science application. At this time, SETI@Home automatically pushed out the new "Enhanced" application as soon as you downloaded work for it. Also at this time where was no way to go into your account preferences and select which types of work you wanted to crunch. You had no choice.

On Aug 21, 2008 SETI@home released v6 of the science application along with the CUDA counterpart "v6.03". Again, this was before you had the choice to select what types of workunits you wanted to crunch.

It wasn't until the first release of AstruPulse v5 in 2009 that the user was given a choice, via their account preferences, as to which types of workunits you wanted to crunch.

There was a straight 4 consecutive years where applications were automatically pushed, and technically still are automatically pushed to your system, without you having a choice.

The reality is you had and still have the choice. You just didn't know you did or how to exercise the choice. Good user level BOINC documentation is rather lacking.

Again, not until much later did the option to choose what types of workunits/applications you'd like to crunch for came into effect. The reality is quite different from what you state, but I agree that good documentation, or better yet, a decent timeline of events and releases is rather lacking.

I think people are missing the following bit:

MELund
Joined: 8 Mar 02

Back then it would have been Seti Classic. I don't recall Classic having auto-update build-in.

Isn't that assuming he didn't crunch for the last 11 years? I mean, my sign-up date was 2002 as well, and I've been here ever since.

But yes, there was no auto-update feature in Classic. However, the moment anyone switched to BOINC (and you had no choice after 2005 because Classic shut down around that time), then you were on the auto-update mechanism.

MELund's stats show that he/she has been a steady SETI@home participant since (at least) the beginning of 2006.

---

I think people are missing the following bit:

MELund
Joined: 8 Mar 02

Back then it would have been Seti Classic. I don't recall Classic having auto-update build-in.

Isn't that assuming he didn't crunch for the last 11 years? I mean, my sign-up date was 2002 as well, and I've been here ever since.

But yes, there was no auto-update feature in Classic. However, the moment anyone switched to BOINC (and you had no choice after 2005 because Classic shut down around that time), then you were on the auto-update mechanism.

I just meant that as long as s/he used Classic s/he had the choice to update or to not update. Isn't having or not having the choice what we are discussing here?

I have same faint memories of updating Classic but I can't remember if the Classic server ever refused to send work to an old client. Although according to your timeline I ran Classic for less than two years so maybe there wasn't any mandatory updates during that time.

As for the other years. Was it that long ago?! Time flies...

Isn't that assuming he didn't crunch for the last 11 years? I mean, my sign-up date was 2002 as well, and I've been here ever since.

But yes, there was no auto-update feature in Classic. However, the moment anyone switched to BOINC (and you had no choice after 2005 because Classic shut down around that time), then you were on the auto-update mechanism.

I just meant that as long as s/he used Classic s/he had the choice to update or to not update. Isn't having or not having the choice what we are discussing here?

I have same faint memories of updating Classic but I can't remember if the Classic server ever refused to send work to an old client. Although according to your timeline I ran Classic for less than two years so maybe there wasn't any mandatory updates during that time.

As for the other years. Was it that long ago?! Time flies...

IIRC and it is getting faint, when you told classic to update, send your result and get the next work unit, you got a window saying download the new client, no work sent. I think it was this way because we were still in the days of dial up modems and per minute phone charges to connect. The world is a different place today.

---

I just meant that as long as s/he used Classic s/he had the choice to update or to not update. Isn't having or not having the choice what we are discussing here?

Well... the discussion in context was whether any user had a choice to refuse an automatic science application upgrade on the BOINC framework. MELund has been an active participant since at least 2006 and had to have received automatic updates through BOINC before.

I disagree.....been here 11 years and never have been informed any NEW VERSIONS will automatically be installed on my system without my permission. I understand the file "updates". A new version should be my choice, especially when it "bogs down" peoples systems farther....like this was is doing.

Since 2002 almost definitely there was update from usual to SETI enchanced. Did you miss it? Did you mis NUMEROUS updates on Einstein where you participate too?

What you talk about? Your lack of understanding how BOINC stock work? Well. You HAVE the choice. Just install anonymous platform. You will crunch those tasks with those programms you consider safe nice meaningful right and so on and so forth. And this setup will never be autoupdated. One small inconvience - after some time host will completely drain, out of any work... But this doesn't matter - no new soft will be downloaded w/o you manual action - mission accomplished.

Of course maybe I just read Einstein boards not so intencive as these ones, but never seen SUCH complains there. They update apps each 2-3 months - maybe users here just forgot about very existence of such capability?...

---

SETI apps news
We're not gonna fight them. We're gonna transcend them.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=1276239658

symaski62 WU

Spike count: 2
Autocorr count: 0
Pulse count: 0
Triplet count: 0
Gaussian count: 0

---------------
===============
---------------

problem

setiathome enhanced x41zc, Cuda 2.20
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 (1024MB) driver: 320.49 OpenCL: 1.00

Microsoft Windows 7

SETI@Home Informational message -9 result_overflow
NOTE: The number of results detected equals the storage space allocated.

Spike count: 16
Autocorr count: 14
Pulse count: 0
Triplet count: 0
Gaussian count: 0

---

SETI@Home Informational message -9 result_overflow
with a general handicap of 80% and it makes much d' efforts for the community and s' expimer, thank you d' to be understanding.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=1276239658

symaski62 WU

Spike count: 2
Autocorr count: 0
Pulse count: 0
Triplet count: 0
Gaussian count: 0
---------------
===============
---------------

problem

setiathome enhanced x41zc, Cuda 2.20
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 (1024MB) driver: 320.49 OpenCL: 1.00

Microsoft Windows 7

SETI@Home Informational message -9 result_overflow
NOTE: The number of results detected equals the storage space allocated.

Spike count: 16
Autocorr count: 14
Pulse count: 0
Triplet count: 0
Gaussian count: 0

I don't run GPUs , but I remember there have been discussions in the Number Crunching forum about problems with older NVidia GPUs and certain driver/OpenCL combinations not working with Seti@Home v7. Look there, and if you don't find an answer, Ask your question in a new thread there.

---

Donald
Infernal Optimist / Submariner, retired