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what is folding?

renswic

renswic

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Nov 28, 2004
Messages
6,854
i ran across this forum yesterday, looked it over and got very confused so i PMed a mod about it and they said to make like a noob and post the here they alost pointed me to this site, http://folding.stanford.edu/ , witch helped some. so just a few questions
what is folding/how does it work?
can it be ran part time or will i need to wait untell i get my old comp up and running?
on that same note will it work on linux?

im sure ill have others later on and thanks for the help
 
Renswic said:
i ran across this forum yesterday, looked it over and got very confused so i PMed a mod about it and they said to make like a noob and post the here they alost pointed me to this site, http://folding.stanford.edu/ , witch helped some. so just a few questions
what is folding/how does it work?
can it be ran part time or will i need to wait untell i get my old comp up and running?
on that same note will it work on linux?

im sure ill have others later on and thanks for the help
Click to expand...

You should give this thread a read....

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=964337

It's got all sorts of info and FAQ's about both F@H and our team. It should answer any questions you may have.
 
Feel free to ask any questions.... we're all here to help.. of course, don't be surprized if you get a reach-through from the moose!

F@H and UD both use spare CPU cycles to do calculations... generally speaking, it's a "set it and forget it" kind of thing... Most of us around here, lean toward the "no nonsense" console client so you can set everything up as a service and it runs in the background, unnoticed... Just about any PC can run it, as long as it can meet the deadlines... if it can't, then just set it up to run timeless WUs (no deadlines)....

The thread Viper linked you to is a good place to start.... www.hardfolding.com also has guides,etc (which I think are linked in the FAQ thread)....

Let us know if you have any questions! we're a pretty friendly group...


Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 
so i can run it while im useing my comp for internet surfing and what not?, i see a screen saver mode was was thinking of going that route as i only have one comp up and running at teh moment and i guess the biggest question i have is, is it safe? by the looks of the folding site i was PMed it links my comp in to some sort of supercomputer and im worryed about that door being used bring nasaty stuffs into my comp
 
Folding @ Home is run by stanford university, and is installed on thousands of computers, all over the place, both on private machines, and at numerous schools universities and businesses.

It is about as safe as you can get.


As to can you run it while doing other stuff?

YES!

Most of us use the console (text only) version of the client as a service. You never see it, it just sits in the background chuggin away being happy, without being noticed. The program itself is designed NOT to interfear with other work, so if you start doing stuff, it wont slow you down. I personally have it running on my gameing machines, and there is no appreciable slowdown when gameing, even while folding.

 
I've never heard of any virus/etc being spread by folding..... a number of us have been doing this for 3+ years without incident.... Stanford has a bank of servers which assign and recieve WUs.... Stanford splits the data into small chunks and gives it out to us, we crunch the numbers and send the info back.... technically, all of our computers make up a "super cluster"....

F@H is intended to forfit it's CPU usage when anything else requests it.... you can actually see the usage for F@H go down if you move the mouse around a bunch... it's designed to be in the background, safe, and worry-free...


Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 
It's perfectly safe. The software you run on your machine only connects to specific servers that are run by Stanford, and download specific files (work units) and then processes them and send them back, and then fetch another one. You don't physically become part of a large virtual supercomputer, so a malicious user can't just send some type of virus or malware to your PC.
 
Did you configure it to run as a service? If so, I'd suggest exiting that window and going to your Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services and starting the service from there. The screenshot you've posted is normal, as it will only update when it completes a step from that point onward.
 
ya i think i got it set as a service and woot it jsut updated to 'writeing checkpoint files' :)
 
WUs take anywhere from a few hours to a few days to finish (those completed frame times vary greatly)

Welcome to the team!


Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 
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