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4.0 Advanced

This way of running BOINC requires 3 things: A CD burner, a USB flash drive (recommend 512MB), and a little knowledge of Linux and/or the patience to learn basic manipulation of files in Linux. The greatest thing about this is that it leaves the hard drive/OS on any computer completely untouched!

SLAX is a 'mini' version of Linux that gives you the capability to boot a computer using only a CD-ROM and a USB flash drive. This means that you can boot up and use a computer that doesn't even have a hard drive! There are many other 'mini' live boot options out there, but SLAX takes care of all the hard stuff for you. The version of SLAX that was current at the time of this FAQ was 5.1.8.

Here's the steps to put this into action...

A) You will need to burn 2 CDs-- (the .iso images for these are available here)
    A.1) SLAX Boot CD v 5.1.8 (lets you boot from a 'live' USB flash drive even without BIOS USB boot option!)
    A.2) SLAX Popcorn Edition v 5.1.8 (very minimal Linux GUI front end)
B) Next, prep the USB flash drive and boot up...
    B.1) Copy -all- (you may need to show hidden files) files from CD (A.2) to the USB flash drive.
    B.2) Insert CD (A.1) and USB flash drive into PC
    B.3) boot the computer
        B.3.a) login (default user is root, default password is toor)
        B.3.b) run xconf to get graphics right (only needed if xstart gives you nothing but a black screen)
        B.3.c) run xstart to startup GUI
C) Next, you -may- need to tell it how to talk over your network/router: (note that if the computer is on a DHCP network, this entire step is unnecessary)
    C.1) open a shell and type in the following, line for line: (x's used to protect the intercent =)
        ifconfig eth0 down
        ifconfig eth0 192.168.xxx.xxx netmask 255.255.255.0
        route add default gateway 192.168.xxx.xxx
        echo "nameserver x.x.x.x" >> /etc/resolv.conf
D) Use Firefox as usual for the rest of the online part...
    D.1) (download distributed computing program to USB flash drive)
E) Open a shell, navigate to correct directory, and run the distributed computing program!

All in all, very simple, and you can theoretically use the (CD A.1/USB flash drive combo) to run distributed computing on any computer with access to the internet!!
And a final note: do NOT set up a swap/VM partition/file on a USB flash drive! It's a very bad idea!


Also see this from Berkeley:

Ubuntu image for USB/diskless/CD-ROM install:

Dotsch/UX is an ISO-format Linux distribution, based on Ubuntu Linux, with the 6.2.15 BOINC client pre-installed. It lets you easily install and boot from a USB stick, hard disk and from diskless clients, and it also has some interfaces to set up the diskless server and the clients automatically.

Download the image (515 MB).

by Kylemaul See Profile edited by lilhurricane See Profile
last modified: 2009-12-10 20:24:43


The World Community Grid software on my computer is currently registered under one member name, but I would like to have it registered under a different member name. How do I change it?

If you have already created the member name you want to use then please continue to Step 1 below.

Otherwise, go to »www.worldcommunitygrid.o ··· ister.do and register your desired member name. You do not need to download the software again.

Once you have the new member name, please perform the following steps to change the registration:

Steps:

Open the World Community Grid BOINC software by double left mouse clicking on the World Community Grid icon in your system tray at the bottom right hand side of your window.
Once it is opened, if you see the Simple View, then click on the text that says Advanced View.
Select the Projects tab and select World Community Grid. Then click on the button that says Detach.
Now go to the menu items at the top of your screen and select advanced and select Tools and then Attach to project. This will open a dialogue box. If 'Attach to project' is grayed out, see the instructions below.
In the dialogue box, click Next. On the next screen, scroll through the list of BOINC projects and select World Community Grid and then click the Next button.
On the next screen, enter the member name and password for the user that you want to register this device under.

Congratulations! You are now attached under the new member name.

Enabling 'Attach to project': If in step 4 the option Attach to project is grayed out and you are unable to select it, then you need to open the file C:\Program Files\BOINC\cc_config.xml using an application such as Notepad. Once you open this file you will see a line that looks like:

1

change this line so that it looks like:

0

Now save the file. Go ahead and close the World Community Grid BOINC software by selecting File -> Exit. You can start it again by going to Start -> Programs -> World Community Grid BOINC Agent -> World Community Grid BOINC Manager. You should now be able to complete step 4 above. If you experience any problems please visit our forums or utilize the contact us feature at the bottom of most pages of our website.

by lilhurricane See Profile
last modified: 2011-11-04 20:52:40

The latest mass-installer pack made for WCG was 5.10.45 (stable)

h*t*t*p://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/wcg_mass_boinc_5.10.45_windows_intelx86.exe

by lilhurricane See Profile
last modified: 2009-08-19 10:36:03

The BOINC command tool (boinccmd, previously called boinc_cmd) provides a command-line interface to a running BOINC core client, boinccmd has the following interface



If you run boinccmd in the same directory as the BOINC client, you don't need to supply either a host name or a password.

Otherwise you need to supply (as password) the string stored in the file gui_rpc_auth.cfg in the client's data directory.

If you use the bash shell, you may find this BOINC Wiki

by lilhurricane See Profile
last modified: 2009-10-19 09:20:04

If installing the new version of BOINC as of July 28, 2011 on a Ubuntu/Mint 64-bit desktop, make sure to pre-install these dependencies. They are not installed by default on Ubuntu - but all is not lost.
They can be found in Synaptic.

•libcurl3

•libwxgtk2.8-0

•libbase2.8-0

by Khaos See Profile edited by lilhurricane See Profile
last modified: 2011-09-10 10:54:08