BOINC 64 bit

I have been playing around with BOINC the last couple of days. It took me some time to figure out a couple of things though.

My laptop runs 64 bit which can be a problem with some of the projects using Boinc. Einstein@Home (as well as many other projects) doesn’t support 64 bit. So with a standard install I would get error messages looking like this one:

Message from server: platform 'x86_64-pc-linux-gnu' not found

There is (as always) a fix – this should work in general, but I have for obvious reasons only tried it on my own Ubuntu laptop. First you need to be able to run 32 bit applications. This is done by installing ia32 libraries:

sudo aptitude install ia32-libs

Then you have to tell the Boinc client to request work as if it was a 32 bit pc. This is done by shutting down the boinc client

sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client stop

and then, in the file /var/lib/boinc-client/client_state.xml replacing the line

<platform_name>x86_64-pc-linux-gnu</platform_name>

with this one:

<platform_name>i686-pc-linux-gnu</platform_name>

and start the Boinc client again

sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client start

Another option is to put your 64 bit processor to use and work on some of the projects that actually support 64 bit…
Here is a list of projects supposed to have native 64 bit applications (I have only tried ABC@home my self):

Of course the two options above does kind of exclude each other. I have not found a way to report one platform to some projects and another platform to others. It would seem nice with a ‘fallback’ platform to be reported if the x86_64 fails, but maybe that will come in the future. On the other hand it seems like a good idea to use only optimized applications on 64 bit hardware. The last approach is the one I’m using currently.
You can see my progress here:


stats
BOINCstats

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 released

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 released

I’m not running Debian currently, but it does have a special place in my heart. Debian was one of the first Linux distributions that I ran on a more permanent basis and my current Linux distribution, Ubuntu, is based largely on the work of the Debian community.

So, I guess what I want to say is a warm welcome to Debian Etch and a big congratulations to all the volunteers who made it happen.

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

Søndag installerede jeg (med onde tømmermænd – hvilken fest lørdag!) Ubuntu Feisty Fawn herd 4 på min bærbare. Siden har jeg brugt dette som mit primære styresystem. Der er (selvfølgelig) stadig bugs, men det virker godt – bl.a. kan nævnes de nye Desktop Effects, der (næsten) er klar til at konkurrerer med OS X’s Exposé. Der mangler dog lige den sidste finpudsning. Bliver spændende at se om Ubuntu når det før d. 19. april…

Med den nye installation har jeg også valgt at køre 64 bit (i stedet for 32 bit). Da jeg ikke køre nogle specielt ressource krævende er det nok mest for ‘blærværdi’ end noget andet, men det gav lidt problemer, da der ikke er understøttelse for java og Adobe Flash plugins til firefox 64 bit. Der er dog nogle tricks, så jeg kan nu både bruge min webbank nu og se alt det unge smarte flash. Alt i alt tror jeg Feisty Fawn bliver rigtig rigtig god, når den engang er helt færdig (selvom jeg af underlige årsager altid har svært ved at stave til det navn når jeg skal, men så kan man jo skrive 7.04 i stedet).

Halvanden time?!?

I går kl. 9.29 har Fullrate sendt mig nedenstående mail:

	from		Fullrate Support
	reply-to	Fullrate Support	 
	to		Søren Bredlund Caspersen
	date		Feb 20, 2007 9:29 AM	 
	subject		Skift af din IP adresse	 
	mailed-by	fullrate.dk

Din Fullrate ADSL forbindelse sidder på en central hvor det er nødvendigt for os at lave nogle ændringer i vores netværksroutning. Selvom vi normalt kan gøre dette uden ændringer for kunder, så er det i dette tilfælde dog nødvendigt at kunder på den pågældende central får skiftet deres IP-nummer. Dette er tilfældet her.

For langt de fleste spiller dette ingen rolle overhovedet – det eneste du skal gøre er at tænde og slukke din router når opgraderingen er afsluttet d. 20/2-2007 kl. 11. Selve opgraderingen vil ske i intervallet 10-11. Hvis du derimod har egne servere eller ligende kan du forberede dig ganske enkelt, således at du bliver mindst muligt påvirket. Hvis du i dag har egen DNS der peger på dit IP-nummer så ændre dette til at pege på dit host-navn i stedet da dette ikke skifter henover IP-ændring.

Eksempelvis hvis din IP adresse er 89.150.136.5 kan du i stedet bruge 0403ds1-vby.0.fullrate.dk når du laver DNS.

Spørgsmål og svar:
==================

Q: “Kan i ikke bare fortælle mig mit nye IP-nummer”
A: Desværre er det ikke muligt da din IP-adresse først bliver låst til dig når du får den første gang. Vi ved således ikke på forhånd hvilken adresse du vil få tildelt.

Q: “Jamen I har jo lovet et fast IP-nummer?”
A: Ja – og det betyder at dit IP nummer ikke skifter fra dag til dag eller uge til uge, men dog ikke at det ikke som i dag kan ske at det må skiftes af netværksmæssige årsager.

Q: “Hvordan finder jeg mit IP-nummer og mit host-navn?”
A: Når du sidder på din Fullrate-forbindelse kan du åbne siden www.myip.dk via din browser og du vil her kunne se dit IP-nummer og under denne har du dit host-navn.

Med venlig hilsen,
Fullrate

Det er lidt tid siden jeg har rodet med DNS opsætning osv., men selv hvis man modtog og læste mailen i det den blev modtaget er 1,5 time vist ikke voldsomt lang tid til at ændre sin DNS opsætning.
Hvis man skal minimere sin forbindelses nedetid er det heller ikke langt varsel til at “tænde og slukke” sin router. (Personligt ville jeg nok foretrække at slukke og så tænde for routeren, men det kan være jeg bare er gammeldags og ikke forstår mig på alt dette nymodens teknik…)

Jeg kører dog (i øjeblikket) ikke nogle servere på min Fullrate forbindelse, så den faste ip adresse er ikke noget jeg bruger eller går op i, men jeg syntes det er lidt tyndt at sende information om ændring af ip adressen ud med så kort varsel (og intet skrive på sin Driftstatus side om det). I mit tilfælde modtog jeg først beskeden da jeg kom hjem fra skole om eftermiddagen og først efter jeg selv havde genstartet min router. Det blev altså mere en forklaring af hvorfor internettet ikke havde virket da jeg kom hjem og ikke rigtig en besked jeg kunne bruge til noget. Hvis den nu var kommet 24 timer tidligere havde det været en helt anden sag…

Men ok, så længe forbindelsen virker i almindelighed så skal ringe information og forbindelses forstyrelser en enkelt dag ikke få lov til at tegne et alt for dårligt billede.

PS. Er den sidste sætning i først afsnit i mailen fra Fullrate ikke overflødig? Jeg tænker på “Dette er tilfældet her.” Eller burde jeg bare gå ud i sneen og få noget frisk luft for at komme af med de her skrækkelige dansk lærer tendenser jeg måske er ved at pådrage mig?

There it was, all along…

I went out to visit Esben for some pizza, a single beer, a tour of his room (and entire dorm) – and just a slow evening of being still hung over from the night before.

Among other things Esben showed me this new fancy website/program/social site, called last.fm. It monitors the music you listen to, and then (among many other things) suggests, based on what others that have listened to the same music also listens to, music that you might find interesting.
The idea is quite similar to iRATE radio, only last.fm can work with more or less any music player, where as iRATE is it’s own player, and only plays what you fetch through their server.

Anyway, I looked closer at possible programs etc. today, only to find out that my (current) favorite player, Amarok, has full last.fm support. So no hassle with installing extra programs etc. All I need to do is sign up for an account, and take it from there. Just the kind of program I need… sweet.

All the cool kids are doing it…!

I just got home a few hours ago… I’m still dizzy, drunk (or both) from my fathers party last night.
I might at a later point come back to writing a little more about that, but right now I will blog about something else.

For some time I have been looking for a way to host some pictures. Both for this blog, but also just in general. I used to run my own gallery server, but that machine is turned off for the moment, I can’t run a gallery server at my current host… long story short, I have signed up at flickr and I must say I am impressed! I haven’t uploaded very many pictures yet (but hopefully will in time), but the features seem really cool, and most importantly, I now have a place to share pictures with the rest of the world.

My flickr profile is linked here (I think). Feel free to look around.

Die, Aquatoid scum!

I have been going through a lot of my old stuff while doing some cleaning and sorting lately, and came across an old X-COM: Terror from the Deep CD. After installing DOSBox
and setting the cycles setting a bit higher that the default, the game performs just like I remember, with full sound support and all.

During the weekend I was at Ølbaren with some friends (and some people from their work). A really nice place – especially, besides all the beers of course, I did enjoy the no-smoking policy.

What to do with all this spare time…?

I have almost two weeks off from school now. Except 3 hours lecture tomorrow this block is done – I handed in my last homework today at 10 am.

So, what am I going to do with all this time on my hands? I do have a to do list that takes up half the screen of my laptop… on the other hand some friends gave me the Burning Crusade (an expansion pack for World of Warcraft) for my birthday. It’s still in the wrapping, so it is not to late to go get the money back at the store. On the other hand, if I’m going to waste time, playing the computer might not be the worst way to do that.
Incidentally, today’s Penny Arcade does illustrate the thoughts going through my mind on the topic of opening up the Burning Crusade wrapping…