I have several older computers just sitting around and I would like to set one (maybe two) up to run SETI at home exclusively. I desire them to be optimized for data processing, thus could care less about graphics or any other aesthetic graphics.

With that, what OS would be preferred? Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, ???

Also what would be recommended for the settings?

Thank you for your time and assistance,
Dan

Interesting question.

Might help if you went into a little more detail on the different machines and then we can discuss more specifics.

In general, you would want to run the Lunatics installer of optimized apps to help you squeeze out extra productivity out of your systems. You can also use it to run or more 1 work units on the GPU depending what kind of GPU they are.

Here's the link to the optimized thread

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=71867

or you can go to the lunatics webpage

http://lunatics.kwsn.info/index.php?module=Downloads;catd=9

Choice of OS is up to you. There is a variety of OS run by different people.

Most common, of course, is windows but even there it varies on which version widely.