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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: BOINC Migration vs UD |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 9
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I have some concerns about the BOINC migration.
I am the technician for the company i work for. Which gives me access to run BOINC on every machine. I also run it at home, and am looking forward to adding some more machines to the list. Everyone has no problem running the UD client at all. As we only use it as a screen saver. My concern, as is/or would be everyones. Is yet another item in the system tray. No one is looking forward to this. - & as with BOINC, if set to screen saver only (which we would be) it is doing nothing but aiding the launch of an application that in UD's case, didn't require a program running at all times to do so. I am willing to run an executable in the background w/out the system tray icon. That is fine. However it appears that cannot be done. Another concern is, BOINC being capable of running w/out being logged on. Not as a service per-say (but that'd be nice), but as the default/logon screen saver. Which i have done with UD in the past. These limitations and apparent required tray icon have stopped me from using BOINC. I installed it once, and promptly uninstalled it. This is too intrusive to the destkop for me & my users given its presence at all times - doing nothing. It appears there is no other choice but to hope that something is done by Q2 of 08 when UD is shutdown. At that point if nothing has changed, i may not be able to continue. I'm not really looking for a 3rd party 'hide the icon' or 'launch application screen saver' solution either. I don't think it's unreasonable to offer users an option to rid of the tray icon and/or only activate GUI via launch of actual application (while application .exe is already running in the background) (w/out tray item) - Which is common in other applications that continually run. Thank you for your time. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Unlike UD, BOINC can run as a service, and doesn't require any graphical component at all.
Simply choose the "service" option during installation. Also, chose "don't run BOINC at startup" so that the GUI doesn't launch. You can then run the GUI (BOINC Manager) separately to control and configure BOINC. BOINC will run all the time, no matter who is logged in (or not). You can configure it not to run while the computer is in use. Only the installing user will have access to the BOINC Manager. You will have to provide a user account for the service to run under. None of this was possible with UD, so I don't understand your complaint at all. |
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KLiK
Master Cruncher Croatia Joined: Nov 13, 2006 Post Count: 3108 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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as Didactylos has said it to you...
----------------------------------------but here is another note: i also run the computers on my work (11) & at home (3) on WCG...and from this verson 5.10.22 (i think i got it right), i'm switching to BOINC only...and i will run them as a servise, with no screensaver! note that if you run them on P4HT machines, you must configure it to run on single core! 'cause the virtual core & crunching dual projects don't go together...so any virtual core machines must be run with ACTUAL core projects on it! |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thank you for both of your responses. I must have missed the service option a while back.
None of this was possible with UD, so I don't understand your complaint at all. Correct, running as a service was never possible. Mainly because it wasn't needed. I will re-install BOINC on a machine and take a look, but it is not clear if setup in 'service' mode that the screen saver (as in the actual graphical display) can run/display when BOINC is operating in service mode. If it can then i don't see any problem. Thanks for your time. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Ok so it appears i'm back to square one. Running in Service Mode as stated by the installation cannot activate the screen saver.
This likely explains why i never tried service mode in the first place. It's unfortunate that the program cannot simply run as a screen saver w/out being intrusive to the desktop. |
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
For the purpose of understanding and 10 minutes of my time, uninstalled the 5.10.22 Single User client and reinstalled as service.
----------------------------------------1. The install as service must be prefaced by a Single/Shared User UNinstall, if you have that, else the option is not offered, just the Repair or Remove options. This has reasons. 2. The WCG package of 5.10.22 including the custom Skin, icons and Screensaver will be inserted and the below screen shows during the install process: 3. In the exercise used the admin password, the name of the admin offered in the Username box. 4. Selected the Screensaver option, but left the "launch when logging on" off, so not to get the BOINCmgr client to load during actual sign-in. The experience. a. The screen-saver is defaulted to the WCG customized version. No science graphics is shown (at least i got none after several minutes hands off), rather the WCG logo imposed on a black background as left hand top and on multi-core machines an alternating description of the jobs running and their individual progress is flopping around the display. b. with the password resume activated, moving the mouse brought up the usual Sign-in screen and log-in could be performed. c. Fast Switching User (Windows key+L) and launching the BOINCmanager (BOINCMgr.exe worked fine, it though by default does not load and does not show any systray-icon (the WCG custom icon or any other BOINC standard). If launched it will show the icon in the systray, but on exit, will remove and leave the science to run on in the background as intended. I'll be transposing all Screen-Saver know-how into a Start Here FAQ in the near future. I have a few more questions for the back-room to answer. Just covering all basis in case they should come up with others users. Added: As is understood, the default install with future version 6.x.x. will be *service*. The graphics components are separated out. What happens to the Screensaver Graphics, separate from the BOINCmgr.exe "show graphics" window I don't know at this time, but expect them to become fully available. 3D graphics are significant resource eaters also from the point of juice used by the graphics card. They slow down crunching progress.
WCG
----------------------------------------Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! [Edit 3 times, last edit by Sekerob at Oct 9, 2007 4:56:26 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
BeGodlike, there is a workaround for this: configure the service to use the LocalSystem account, and allow it to interact with the desktop.
Note that there is a security risk associated with this, but no more than running BOINC as administrator. BOINC version 6 will solve this problem permanently, without any need for workarounds. Finally, there is no need to use the BOINC screensaver at all. BOINC will continue running while some other screensaver is active, so long as it's not too CPU intensive. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Didactylos : That appears to have done the trick. There's a couple one time details after that but i think this might be it, thanks again for your time.
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
It's what we're here for.
Any time :-) |
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