Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

mikkyo · Oct 2, 2002, 03:02 AM

Yay.
Lots of new members turning in units.
We can easily make it to the 6th spot if folks keep it up.
If I move my machines over we can take the top 5 in no time.
I recommend anyone that wants to make a name for themselves join up now!
Team MacNN

Shaktai · 04:46 AM

Originally posted by mikkyo:
Yay.
Lots of new members turning in units.
We can easily make it to the 6th spot if folks keep it up.
If I move my machines over we can take the top 5 in no time.
I recommend anyone that wants to make a name for themselves join up now!
Team MacNN

Well two of my fastest boxes are on Folding @Home right now, but if I I throw everything back into D2OL, do you think you can pass me before we make the #6 overall slot?
Me as Eaglechild that is, not Shaktai - you can take that as a challenge.

Right now we are only a little over 4000 units shy of the #10 overall spot. Should be able to break into the top 10 in pretty short order, and with a little effort, the top 5 is very doable. Heck, it wouldn't take that much more to make it to #2.

Hey, just noticed, that was your 100th post. Congratulations!!!

jarling · Oct 2, 2002, 10:57 AM

It seems like with all the excitement going on in D2OL, it would be good to get a page going about it. It no longer seems like a potential future project, rather it looks like its here to stay. (I've also been depressed seeing all these projects with so much red behind us, it would be a morale boost to see a project where the field in front of us is bright green.)

Shaktai · Oct 2, 2002, 11:42 AM

Originally posted by jarling:
It seems like with all the excitement going on in D2OL, it would be good to get a page going about it. It no longer seems like a potential future project, rather it looks like its here to stay. (I've also been depressed seeing all these projects with so much red behind us, it would be a morale boost to see a project where the field in front of us is bright green.)

Yes, but right now Reader is very busy with the redoing the stats on current projects and that is more important. We can wait a little longer to get a page and stats for D2OL. I have been wanting to try to pull together an info page, to help out, but just haven't had the time or energy yet. Maybe soon.

Since RC-5 shut down, some of the other D2OL teams have seen a boost, so competition is getting tougher there too. If all 15 folks already on the team list just crunched a little every day, we would have the power to continue a strong advance.

SkiBikeSki · Oct 2, 2002, 01:13 PM

Man, I've been gone for long time. What's all this stuff about D2OL? Just kidding, I can figure it out.

enola · Oct 2, 2002, 02:02 PM

Argh!!!!

Before I knew it I had signed up and downloaded the client.

Okay, I'm staying mellow this time. I've gotten over my initial shock posting big fat zeros on dfold. Besides it's fun starting something new again.

I'm trying to get used to the client. I don't quite understand what it's doing. And after months of CLI this thing is pretty fancy.

mikkyo · Oct 2, 2002, 04:40 PM

Originally posted by enola:
Argh!!!!

Before I knew it I had signed up and downloaded the client.

Yay!

I'm trying to get used to the client. I don't quite understand what it's doing. And after months of CLI this thing is pretty fancy.

It is like this on Mac OS X:
SengentD2OL app launches a java app that you see in the dock(if you are running 10.2 the dock icon may go byebye, but the app still runs in the background).
The java app controls the gui app (what you get if you show agent, also java I think) and the background tasks which find the conformers and docks them with the target looking for good candidates. When a candidate has been completed, if you are online, it sends all the conformers and good candidates to the server.
It is a bit random in that you might get lucky and have a whole bunch of really good conformers that you get credit for with one candidate, but not many with the next.
Note that you download a candidate which is like a protein in DF, process it for conformers and then it docks the conformers with the target(ebola, etc) and calls the good ones candidates(different meaning). Kinda annoying.
So in the Stats, the candidates are the good conformers that docked well with the target, not the number of candidates you processed, which aren't tracked as far as I know.
You will want to set the prefs to grab as many candidates as possible (in case of server issues, which occur) the max is 100.
Turn off animation if you want speed(though it wont matter since you won't be showing the agent when you want speed).

Now you are good to go.
When you want to show off or check on status of an agent, Choose Show Agent from the Drug Design Optimization Lab's Agent control menu.
The rest of the time keep the agent closed.
When you quit the Agent, it shuts down the CPU hoggin graphics.
When you quit D2OL, it shuts down the background tasks properly and the client stops running.

If you signed up, when you log in on the web there is a place to add each of the nodes you are running. Sometimes nodes dont show up in the list until they have turned in some conformers/candidates.
You don't have to manually add node numbers, but you may want to make a list of them and which machine they are on in case you have problems.

If you want to tweak things, In Terminal as root you can do open SengentD2OL.app in the appropriate directory, then get the PID from ps awwux | grep Sengent, then renice it to like -20 to crank.
You could also try the Java tweaks we used with Ubero (search for my post on tweaking D2OL), though it might not get you much since the java app is just a controller.

Right now there are issues with running the whole thing as a background process like via cron with no one logged it. It looks like it is still running, but then there is no way to do a proper shutdown, so you end up losing work when you have to kill it to reboot or use the machine.

Enjoy, glad to have you on board.

Shaktai · Oct 2, 2002, 08:51 PM

Well, I got the glitches out of my Power Mac 800 and Celeron and they are running steady again. Good for about 110-130 units per day. Also as of this morning, all my fast Athlon/linux boxes are back on D2OL.

Who is going to be the first to catch me?

(AKA: Eaglechild)

Shaktai · Oct 2, 2002, 10:51 PM

Wow! Wouldn't you know it would happen this way. Ski Bike Ski, comes in, crunches 400 conformers and 20 candidates, and all of a sudden he has the best candidate on the team if it holds up to review.

Anthrax Lethal Factor with an energy of -360.87. That is almost twice as good as my best candidate after 31,498 candidates and 629,960 conformers.

enola · Oct 3, 2002, 12:17 AM

Hey Mikkyo thanks for the rundown.

I'm just running it on two computers. A P-something 1.7 Ghz and my G4 dual. I had some problems the first time I installed the client on the G4. I didn't install in the default location (the Applications folder) and when the agent came up it would do nothing but scroll through candidates and not do any conformers. I let it run like this for about 30 minutes then started investigating. My system.log was full of java crashdump errors.

I had no clue how to fix this so I uninstalled and reinstalled this time to the default place it wanted to go to. Started up the client and everything was cool right from the start. Weird. But I'm glad it's working now because the G4 seems to be faster than the PC.

I posted this on the d2ol message board but I'll post here too. Anyone know how to remove a node from the personal stats page on d2ol web site? You can add but you can't seem to delete.

thanks ... -e

SkiBikeSki · 01:16 AM

Originally posted by Shaktai:
Wow! Wouldn't you know it would happen this way. Ski Bike Ski, comes in, crunches 400 conformers and 20 candidates, and all of a sudden he has the best candidate on the team if it holds up to review.

Anthrax Lethal Factor with an energy of -360.87. That is almost twice as good as my best candidate after 31,498 candidates and 629,960 conformers.

Lucky me. I never had any luck like that with DFold, so I guess I was due.

BTW How did you discover that I had such a great candidate. Is there some list I haven't discovered yet? Or did you just happen to click on my stats? That was probably a really idiotic question, right?

Shaktai · Oct 3, 2002, 02:15 AM

Originally posted by SkiBikeSki:

Lucky me. I never had any luck like that with DFold, so I guess I was due.

BTW How did you discover that I had such a great candidate. Is there some list I haven't discovered yet? Or did you just happen to click on my stats? That was probably a really idiotic question, right?

Well actually I was looking at the team stats, and saw that someone had a real good one. So I went looking.

Also, don't know of anyway to get rid of unused nodes. It is a real pain when you have to reinstall. I show 12 nodes, but only have 6.

mikkyo · Oct 3, 2002, 03:24 AM

Yeah there is no way to get rid of old nodes yet.
I have 4 dead ones I think.

The Mac is faster than the PC cause
1 you aren't running linux (heh, no that isnt the reason)
2 D2OL uses vector math, and the mac has a nice vector unit(altivec).

BTW on your dual you should have two clients.
Move aside the one you have running(quit it first) or rename it and install another in the default location.
I think the reason it screws up if you dont install it in the default location is either permissions issues or the failure of the installer to set the right working directory before launching the app the first time.
Once you have it running you can shut it down and move it somehwere, just make sure you have the right permissions if you are tucking it away in like /usr/local/bin or something crazy like a second hard drive.

reader50 · Oct 3, 2002, 11:55 AM

Now why am I feeling this sudden urge to download the client, and try installing in /Applications/iTunes/Contents/Resources/ ... ?

sideus · Oct 3, 2002, 05:21 PM

Those of you who are looking at the D2OL team list and wondering who is baw, its me.

l008com · Oct 3, 2002, 08:51 PM

baw you're going down! I'm right up your �ss! But I won't be for long!!! I probably won't make it too high up the ranks though, because as soon as dnet starts, I'm outta here. But for now, I crutch for the team, and for humanity!

Shaktai · Oct 3, 2002, 11:04 PM

Woo Hoo!!! Our best day ever today. Over 915 candidates submitted and we were number 3 in daily production today. At this rate we should make the top ten in about 3-4 more days.

For those who are interested, daily stats reset at Midnight US Eastern time or 9 PM US Pacific time (I think that is about 4 or 5 am universal time)

l008com · Oct 4, 2002, 08:23 PM

I'm having big problems. I tried to do the two client at once thing, and it didn't work. I double click on both installations, but I only get one running in the dock, and it and its components use very little CPU and have not completed a single WU since this happened. What is the easiest way to completely delete this program from my computer so I can reinstall it?

jswayze · Oct 4, 2002, 11:17 PM

Man, I'm right with you. I started a new thread on this one but am still awaiting a response...

-JS

Originally posted by l008com:
I'm having big problems. I tried to do the two client at once thing, and it didn't work. I double click on both installations, but I only get one running in the dock, and it and its components use very little CPU and have not completed a single WU since this happened. What is the easiest way to completely delete this program from my computer so I can reinstall it?

Shaktai · Oct 5, 2002, 03:54 PM

Originally posted by jswayze:
Man, I'm right with you. I started a new thread on this one but am still awaiting a response...

-JS

I have posted over in the D2OL and TSC forums to try to find out how to do this. I don't have a dual processor mac (yet) to play with though. If I get a response I will post it. In the interim I would reccomend running D2OL along with another team project on dual processor machines. That way no power is wasted.

We will very soon break into the Top 10 in D2OL and our daily production is up around #2 or 3. Thanks to everyone that is helping out.

SkiBikeSki · Oct 6, 2002, 12:34 AM

I'm having similar problems with my Linux installation. It runs, and displays the graphics with lightning speed. But it never crunches anything. And it uses very little CPU power. I'm now using just a very simple Red Hat install.

Shaktai · 01:46 AM

Originally posted by SkiBikeSki:
I'm having similar problems with my Linux installation. It runs, and displays the graphics with lightning speed. But it never crunches anything. And it uses very little CPU power. I'm now using just a very simple Red Hat install.

Does it seem to run through candidates too fast? Like about one every second? There is a known Linux problem. Check out the following threads in the D2OL forum http://forum.sengent.com/cgi-bin/ult...;f=11;t=000005 and in the TSC forum http://www.childhooddiseases.org/cgi...c;f=8;t=000004 (TSC is just a variation of D2OL.)

That fixed my problems and my 4 linux boxes have been crunching steadily ever since, as my numbers can testify. How much faster is Linux then say Win XP on the same machine? About 70%.

Shaktai (AKA: Eaglechild)

Shaktai · Oct 6, 2002, 08:37 PM

Yippee!!!!

Team MacNN has now broken into the top 10 overall in D2OL and we have been running #2 in daily production for three days in a row.

At our current rate of production I estimate we will take the #9 spot in about 10 days and the #8 spot in about 2 weeks.

Way to go team!

l008com · Oct 6, 2002, 08:40 PM

Yes.... except RC5 will have started by then, and I'm sure you will lose most of the team by then. I hope we can cure ebola before that happens.

mikkyo · Oct 6, 2002, 08:42 PM

Originally posted by Shaktai:
Yippee!!!!

Team MacNN has now broken into the top 10 overall in D2OL and we have been running #2 in daily production for three days in a row.

At our current rate of production I estimate we will take the #9 spot in about 10 days and the #8 spot in about 2 weeks.

Way to go team!

Oh you just wait til tomorrow

Shaktai · Oct 6, 2002, 08:57 PM

Originally posted by l008com:
Yes.... except RC5 will have started by then, and I'm sure you will lose most of the team by then. I hope we can cure ebola before that happens.

A new RC-5 or in two weeks? Where did you hear that? Doesn't matter though, all the help we can get is appreciated, even if for only a short time.

Besides, sounds as though mikkyo has something up his sleeve.

sideus · Oct 6, 2002, 10:03 PM

Wish there were a CLI for D2OL, I don't like this java frontend.

Shaktai · Oct 7, 2002, 12:26 AM

Originally posted by sideus:
Wish there were a CLI for D2OL, I don't like this java frontend.

Actually there is. I haven't tried it yet, but here is what you do.

Select the D2OL application and "Control click" on it. (Thanks mikkyo for pointing the way.)
You will see a menu pop up, select "Show Package Contents".
This will open another window with a folder named Contents.
Open that folder and you will see a folder called MacOS
Open that folder and you will see a Read Me file.
Check out the Read Me. It has a lot of info including how to start up as a CLI app plus all the terminal commands that are available.

l008com · Oct 7, 2002, 12:35 AM

Originally posted by Shaktai:

A new RC-5 or in two weeks? Where did you hear that? Doesn't matter though, all the help we can get is appreciated, even if for only a short time.

Besides, sounds as though mikkyo has something up his sleeve.

That according to the dNet guys themselves, we'll have to see if it actually comes out or not though... Hopefully, I much prefer dnet over all other DC 'games'. I'm goona have to try that CLI thing, that would make it much easier to run two copies with out having all the problems I got last time I tried with these half java versions.

macdude22 · Oct 8, 2002, 03:10 PM

Now that my DSL is back up I've got my machine crunching full time now. Hopefully we can pull this team to the top baby. I'm working on aquring more machines for the cause.

Shaktai · Oct 9, 2002, 12:47 AM

Originally posted by macdude22:
Now that my DSL is back up I've got my machine crunching full time now. Hopefully we can pull this team to the top baby. I'm working on aquring more machines for the cause.

Glad to have you back on board full time. We are in a good position to make a major move.

Since you started the MacNN D2OL team, any chance you can fix the web link on the D2OL team stats page? Never know when having a good link might bring new members in, especially now that we are in the top 10 and climbing steadily, we will be noticed. Might as well do all that we can to attract new Mac users and the tripod link is a dead end or is broken.

Shaktai · Oct 9, 2002, 01:49 AM

Uh oh! It looks like Mikkyo has cranked it up and added 8-10 more nodes in the last 24 hours . His daily production is now more then mine. Doesn't look like the Eaglechild will be soaring in the number 1 team spot for too much longer. Way to go mikkyo, just try to not singe my tail feathers too badly when you roar past me.

Oh well, it was getting lonely at the top. On the plus side, we should start climbing the top 10 ranks at a very good clip. I had estimated 12-14 days to take the #8 spot, but I think we can knock a few days off of that now.

-Shaktai: AKA Eaglechild

mikkyo · Oct 10, 2002, 12:20 AM

Whee!
Check the daily production now!
Top Teams Today

jswayze · Oct 10, 2002, 08:05 AM

I've noticed a few other teams that would do well to join our ranks

Namely, "Mac OS X" with about 19 nodes and four team members. Any idea how to contact other teams? I can't seem to find any e-mail addresses.

I'd be happy to write some recruiting letters if I knew where to send them.

-Jeff

Shaktai · Oct 10, 2002, 06:05 PM

Originally posted by jswayze:
I've noticed a few other teams that would do well to join our ranks Namely, "Mac OS X" with about 19 nodes and four team members. Any idea how to contact other teams? I can't seem to find any e-mail addresses.

I'd be happy to write some recruiting letters if I knew where to send them.

-Jeff

They don't have a website and it looks like they only have 1 or 2 active nodes. Their entire team production for the last week is only a little more than my iBook 600 which is my slowest machine, and the one that I use the most for other things. It doesn't look like a very active team.

Shaktai · Oct 11, 2002, 06:17 PM

Yee Gads!!!! Mikkyo has cranked it up another notch.

We are almost matching the production of the #1 Dutch Power Cows, and are more then double the production of the nearest team behind us.

reader50 · Oct 11, 2002, 06:56 PM

Darn, I need to get on the ball with the stats.

Why the heck am I wasting all this time working? Oh yeah, the money thing.

Shaktai · Oct 11, 2002, 10:35 PM

Originally posted by reader50:
Darn, I need to get on the ball with the stats.
Why the heck am I wasting all this time working? Oh yeah, the money thing.

Hey that money thing is important. No money, no computers. Besides it is still a long haul from #10 to #1. The teams ahead of us have a several months head start. It will take a while to make it to the top. Stats will be great when you get to them. I would think the SETI race is first priority, and then whatever you can do when you can.

Shaktai · Oct 13, 2002, 02:38 PM

We are now #9 overall and #2 in current daily/weekly production. We should make #8 overall in less then 2 days.

Rock on!!!!!

jswayze · Oct 13, 2002, 03:32 PM

Originally posted by Shaktai:
We are now #9 overall and #2 in current daily/weekly production. We should make #8 overall in less then 2 days.

Rock on!!!!!

All we need are a couple more CPUs and we'll be #1 in daily production. I'm going to try to hook up a couple of my older PCs I have lying around, but I'm starting to run out of outlets and Ethernet ports!!

-J

WangDoodle · Oct 13, 2002, 04:04 PM

Originally posted by Shaktai:
We are now #9 overall and #2 in current daily/weekly production. We should make #8 overall in less then 2 days.

Rock on!!!!!

i just tossed a G4 867 and a G4 450 into the mix

i'll have a P4 1.3 and a 2200 xp in on the fun a little later

hope it helps

Shaktai · Oct 13, 2002, 10:55 PM

DPC are some tough cookies. I figure we need at least another 5 gigahertz to seriously challenge them for #1, but every box we get is a step in the right direction. I'm hoping by January or February to upgrade some of my machines.

Even with twice DPC's crunch power (which we don't have yet), it would take several months to catch them in overall stats. This isn't a battle we will win quickly, but it is a battle we can win. #1 isn't a dream but a reality, if we are willing to work for it.

Mikkyo kicked off this rock and roll fest, but it is up to the rest of us to help keep the tunes going.

Keep on Rockin!!!

jswayze · Oct 14, 2002, 07:20 PM

Well, the Power Cows are moooving right along (sorry, couldn't resist) - yesterday we were neck and neck, and today they've pulled away with 2000 to our 1200. Either they've pulled more resources in or they've been sandbagging!

We CAN catch them though - we have to keep the pressure on and keep recruiting new members!

Invite all your friends, enemies, family members and neighbors. Let's go!!!!

mikkyo · Oct 14, 2002, 09:55 PM

Originally posted by reader50:
Darn, I need to get on the ball with the stats.
Why the heck am I wasting all this time working? Oh yeah, the money thing.

Tis OK as we can make due with DPC's slow site
Griz Stats - Teams Today
Griz Stats - Members today

mikkyo · Oct 14, 2002, 09:58 PM

Originally posted by jswayze:
Well, the Power Cows are moooving right along (sorry, couldn't resist) - yesterday we were neck and neck, and today they've pulled away with 2000 to our 1200. Either they've pulled more resources in or they've been sandbagging!

We CAN catch them though - we have to keep the pressure on and keep recruiting new members!

Invite all your friends, enemies, family members and neighbors. Let's go!!!!

I had some machines offline.
Tomorrow should look better.

Shaktai · Oct 14, 2002, 11:17 PM

Originally posted by jswayze:
Either they've pulled more resources in or they've been sandbagging!

A lot of DPC's members run off-line, and only upload their units once per day. Some of them cache their units over the weekends, and then upload on Monday, because they don't have access on the weekend. That is why we catch up over the weekend, and then fall back on Monday. Overall it averages out.

We need to increase our daily production by at least 450-500 units per day to get ahead of them. That means another 8 to 10 ghz of crunch power. (13 to 16 ghz if you are running Win XP)

Still we will take the #8 overall spot sometime tomorrow morning, and we are consistently #2 in daily and weekly production.

Best time to check stats for comparisons is about 8:55 Pacific or 11:55 Eastern time, right before they reset for the next day which is at midnight eastern time.

jswayze · Oct 20, 2002, 09:41 PM

Just checked out the stats -we were number 1 in production today!

Here's a screenshot:

Let's keep it up!

blackwind · 11:03 PM

Originally posted by jswayze:
Just checked out the stats -we were number 1 in production today!

Here's a screenshot:

Let's keep it up!

Yes! I like this distributed project. I'm actually making a slight difference!

If only I had another G4...

Edit:
I just checked the D2OL statistics page. At 23:50, October 20, 2002, we had 1486 candidates versus Dutch Power Cows' 1480. This is still pretty close...

-blackwind
(kind of sort of getting a hang of the interface...)

reader50 · Oct 21, 2002, 12:41 AM

We have a dedicated D2OL news page. It's a start.

http://team.macnn.com/d2ol/index.phtml

jswayze, thanks for the pic. I'll get to the D2OL sigs presently also, including yours.

Update for anyone interested, my free time is slowly coming back. I've been working the last few days on the beta stats code -- the final versions. Things are moving again, if slowly.

jswayze · Oct 21, 2002, 10:05 AM

Originally posted by reader50:
We have a dedicated D2OL news page. It's a start.

http://team.macnn.com/d2ol/index.phtml

jswayze, thanks for the pic. I'll get to the D2OL sigs presently also, including yours.

Update for anyone interested, my free time is slowly coming back. I've been working the last few days on the beta stats code -- the final versions. Things are moving again, if slowly.

Nice job on the page, reader50! It will be nice to have everything in one place (and stats, too!!)