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SETI

philertman

I got my Raspberry PI 3 today. I also received my 12" LCD monitor/television and the Miuzei case from Amazon. I spent some time today and put it all together. I inserted the memory card with NOOBS software and powered

everything up. After initial load I made the choice to load the Raspian OS. (Denbian Linux). I am a member of SETI@home. I run BOINC on my computer. I know I can run BOINC on the Raspberry. I am having a difficult time

of getting any answers. As I am new to Raspberry and LINUX I need everything done in kindergarten talk. I am learning folks, every journey begins with the first step. Do any of you know how to set up BOINC in a Raspberry?

    Second question is sort of strange. I would like to have multiple Raspberry PI running for analysis of signals. I have seen pictures of Raspberry PI's in clusters. But nobody is saying HOW to do it. Do you just use one Raspberry PI as a control of the stack and attach your keyboard, mouse and monitor to it? Is there any documentation so I don't have to keep bugging you folks.

  • 0

    Hi Philip,

     

    There's no single location of documentation, but there's community-created content here: Raspberry Pi Projects (there are beginners articles and projects there) and beginners journal-like articles at http://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi

    The installation of boinc is discussed here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/share-boinc/

    Regarding clusters, unless software is specifically designed to run like this, the software needs to be run individually on each machine, there's no sharing of resources normally. You can log into one device and remotely access the others, using a few different techniques depending on needs.

    If you wish to view a full graphical desktop, then tools like rdesktop can be used. See the Remote Desktop section here to see how to do that: Accessing and Controlling the Pi

    If the software you're using is purely text-based and has no graphics and if you are happy with just command-line interaction (a bit like DOS) then it's possible to use a protocol called SSH. It is described at that link too.

    Just for reference, if you've already got a PC that you use for day-to-day stuff, then if you don't need graphics (or don't need intensive graphics) there's no need to attach a keyboard/monitor/mouse to a Pi, it can be accessed using the remote methods mentioned above, from your PC. My Pi is not connected to display/kb/mouse, just to the home network. I connect from the PC to do some work on it.

    I don't use the graphical view, so this is how it looks like from my Windows PC (red is Pi, blue is a different Linux machine.. but the same method can be used for many Pi's). So, for graphical method or not, it mainly depends on the end application and also on what you prefer, and desired mode of use - some prefer a separate keyboard/mouse/display).

    image

  • 0 in reply to shabaz

    Shabaz, maybe I am wrong but as far as I know, this program, as well as many other, ha very few to do with the clustering of a local device. The cluster is outside and every connected device just sends its contribution in data analysis controller by the remote engine, hopefully using the unused CPU time.

    Local clustering with the Raspberry PI is possible –always based on my reduced experience in this case – but it is focused on a totally different topic. In the past, I have used a cluster of different computers (including some raspberry PI B) and some netbook with ubuntu to increase the speed of some slow tasks, with very good results; on a cluster of five different devices (with different CPU freq.) the average results have been:

     

    • Rendering 3D objects with 3D Studio MAX and Blender: a global increase of about 20%
    • Assembling and final rendering of large video productions and a lot of editing features using Cinelerra: 35% with its own very efficient headless server
    • Compiling long sources (rebuilding the entire Linux kernel with custom drivers) with concurrent/distributed compiling (you can find some notes here and there: https://github.com/alicemirror/Ltib-EA3250 ): Probably the most efficient way

     

    Consider that I have always searched for and privileged the methods that share the resources on a server-clients basis accordingly with the different performances of the clustered processors. This means that every contributor device is used at the best of his performances. For example, assembling videos with Cinelerra every client CPU, memory, etc. is tested by the server to decide the number of frames-per-time-unit should be sent to every remote module.

     

    Just to show an example, below a video of a series of 12 for a DVD I produced several years ago; all the pieces (and the entire DVD assembly) were launched in a batch together over multiple computers.

     

  • 0

    Philip,

     

    NOOBS running Raspbian Linux is a debian linux operating system.  If you are comfortable using the command line, there are instructions here:

         https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Installing_BOINC_on_Debian

    But it won't be "kindergarten" level.  You will have to read several pages on that site to get it running.

     

    The command line install that berkeley says to use is:

             sudo apt-get install boinc-client boinc-manager

     

    (in kindergarten talk, sudo gives you the power to install programs, apt-get is the name of the installer)

     

     

    If you're more of a windows user starting with linux, here's what I suggest.  Assuming you are running the graphical interface in NOOBS Raspbian, use the menu system to install BOINC.

    -- have your raspberry pi connected to the internet, and running

    -- click on the raspberry menu button (top left of your screen)

    -- mouse down to "Preferences"

    -- in the Preferences list click on "Add / Remove Software"

    -- a window will open up, at the top left of the window, there is a blank search rectangle

    -- type in " boinc-client " (without quotes) and hit the Enter key

    -- Add / Remove will find the boinc client and display the name at the top of the window, actually it finds 4 items, all parts of boinc

    -- click the check-boxes next to each of the 4 names, then click on the Apply button

    -- Raspbian will require the sudo password (by default it is raspberry)

    -- Add / Remove installs boinc, it takes several minutes

    -- when it is done installing, go back to the raspberry menu button (top left of your screen)

    -- mouse down to " System Tools ", BOINC Manager will be there, click on it

    -- follow the BOINC instructions (add a project), enjoy finding ET

  • 0 in reply to shabaz

    With all your help I got BOINC up and running on my PI. It is cranking along but it is working. I am trying to get the "official" Raspberry PI magazine. It may take

    a little while because it is in England and I need it shipped to the United States. I have to wait 48 hours for them to answer. (AKA Monday)

    Thank you so much for your help. I did not realize how much I missed this. Thank you again.

     

    Respectfully

    Phil

  • 0 in reply to philertman

    Hi Philip,

     

    That's great it is working. By the way the PDF copy of the magazines is free to download (but appreciate sometimes a paper copy is easier to read) - just mentioning it in case you weren't aware of the PDF version.

  • 0 in reply to shabaz

    I found a way to work with the Raspberry PI. It was intended for teacher/student inter action but it would work for me. It is call PiNet. Using a router, some network switched and just about as many PI's you can afford. You get an old X386 computer and it boots and download software to the PI's on the network. So I would have each PI running BOINC and they pretty much run on there own from there.

      SETI has "acquired" more data from a radio telescope in Ausralia. SETI has put together ANACONDA software free to download. It is a series of programs to sift through petrabytes of information from the new station. The radio files are huge and not in the same format that SETI uses. They want people to use the package to try and figure out a way to sift it for signals. SETI@Home is calling it Breakthrough.

  • 0 in reply to shabaz

    I am old school. I like to be able to dog ear a magazine and mark pages. Sometimes when you are trying to learn something it is better to have in front of you. I have run into

    problems where I need to do something on the computer and have to keep switching back and forth from the article to the thing I am working on. I downloaded ANACONDA from the SETI site.

    My God Shabaz am I old! I have forgotten most of what I knew in mathematics. I wanted to use the programs in ANACONDA to work on the BREALTHROUGH project. Now I am not so sure.

     

    Phil