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KWSN Orbiting Fortress
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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 Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 10:21 pm Post subject: A few for me (before I forget again) |
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In light of the announcements of 1 million TC (or multiples thereof), this might not seem like much to some folks, and I've exceeded 550k (I somehow didn't notice when I made 500k)
According to the KWSN site, I'm also well into the top 200 on the team with a position of 190 which is 94th percentile.
BOINC Combined Statistics hasn't given me credit for quite 550K yet, and it says I'm 98.5 percentile by TC and 99.5 percentile by RAC. I know that means that there are still quite a number of people ahead of me, and I think I'm doing very well considering the modest investment I've made in hardware.
For instance, the shrubber that reversed my backwards slide in world standings is an HP/Compaq server (Dual 2.4 gHz Xeons with hyperthreading) that came with everything it needed to run (save OS) for whole $75 plus tax. That was the minimum bid on an ebay auction, but the seller is only a few miles from here, so I can pick it up and pay sales tax on it instead of paying shipping.
The good news is I'm sniping a auction for another one of the same thing, except this one has more drives. 
The bad news is I don't have another copy of Windows Server 2003 (which is what I used on the first one), so I'm going to have to use linux, and I have heard that can be less than fun with server RAID controllers.
Anyway, while I'm really glad that so many heavy hitters choose to be on our team, clearly more modest contributions count, too.
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KWSN imcrazynow
Prince
Joined: 15 May 2005
Posts: 2586
Location: Behind you !!
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| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 10:31 pm Post subject: |
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Excellent shrubbing there Lloyd. All shrubs count and are needed in our quest for world domination. 
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And a few that won't update for some reason.
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 10:44 pm Post subject: |
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| KWSN imcrazynow wrote: | | ...our quest for world domination. |
Thanks, and thanks for a hearty chuckle "...world domination..." indeed! 
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Killerrabbit
Major Oblivion
Joined: 23 May 2002
Posts: 4656
Location: in a rabbit hole near you!!
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| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 11:47 pm Post subject: |
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Now that is some hearty shrubbing.
Ni
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Sir Papa Smurph
Cries like a little girl
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Posts: 4430
Location: Michigan
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| Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:27 am Post subject: |
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550 is nothing to sneeze at Sir...
Congratulations.......
Mabey I should search ebay as well. $75.00 
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a.k.a. Licentious of Borg.........Resistance Really is Futile.......
and a Really Hoopy Frood who always knows where his Towel is...
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KWSN Im Not Dead
Prince
Joined: 10 Apr 2007
Posts: 710
Location: East Tennessee
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| Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:36 am Post subject: |
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Congratulations! 
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KWSNImNotDead - "I don't want to go on the cart!". It is spelled LooNies. |
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Sir Papa Smurph wrote: | 550 is nothing to sneeze at Sir...
Congratulations.......
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Thanks. I think of it as respectable. Certainly not spectacular, but respectable.
| Sir Papa Smurph wrote: | | Maybe I should search ebay as well. $75.00 |
If you really needed it, I could tell you who's selling it. I wouldn't mind losing to another knight, though I would just take my snipe off. No sense running up the bid on each other.
I have two sellers here in the Denver area that welcome local pickups and don't charge any extra to do so (some sellers charge almost as much as shipping, or don't allow local pick ups). The economics work out for heavy things like servers, because the shipping would be so high to send them elsewhere. The one seller would have charged $68.50 to ship the Xeon box, which is reasonable, considering, but certainly much higher than sales tax.
I'm writing this on my dual PIII Untangle box, which I'm still testing. Turns out that it was a linux quirk more than a mobo problem (though the problem is crappy ACPI support on the mobo, so I guess it's a tossup). Anyway, it's looking like I'll be able to run Untangle on this, on top of Ubuntu 8.04LTS, which allows me to do some modest shrubbing on the 2X1 gHz PIIIs I got it for the $19.95 minimum bid from my other local ebay seller. It's a very heavy-gauge 3U or so rack case that came with the mobo, a cheapo but usable PSU, the CPUs, 256MB of RAM, a floppy and a CD-ROM. I ditched the dustbuster-sounding fan for two temp controlled, 120mm CompUSA fans I got on closeout (it has a nice, filtered air intake, BTW), snagged another 1GB RAM for $18, tossed in a 20GB HDD I got from a free computer, installed a Matrox vid card I got for $5, and I was good to go.
Oh, yeah, one more thing. One of several quirks with this particular make and model mobo is sometimes the CPU fans won't spin at all if you're running linux. That's certainly the case here, or maybe they're just dead. No big deal - I just hooked another 120mm fan directly to the PSU and plopped it on top of both heatsinks, and the CPUs seem to run plenty cool enough.
Yeah, not as good of a deal as the HP/Compaq dual Xeon box, and I got this first. And it started out quieter than the Xeon, much less when I put quieter fans in it. Not that that matters much, they're both going in another room soon, anyway.
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:52 pm Post subject: |
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| KWSN Im Not Dead wrote: | | Congratulations! |
Thanks! That counts for a lot coming from someone that has about 3 times the TC that I have
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Killerrabbit wrote: | Now that is some hearty shrubbing.
Ni |
Thanks! 
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ohiomike
Prince
Joined: 20 May 2007
Posts: 858
Location: Sometimes
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| Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 5:06 am Post subject: |
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| Lloyd M. wrote: |
<snip>
I'm writing this on my dual PIII Untangle box, which I'm still testing. Turns out that it was a linux quirk more than a mobo problem (though the problem is crappy ACPI support on the mobo, so I guess it's a tossup). Anyway, it's looking like I'll be able to run Untangle on this, on top of Ubuntu 8.04LTS, which allows me to do some modest shrubbing on the 2X1 gHz PIIIs I got it for the $19.95 minimum bid from my other local ebay seller. It's a very heavy-gauge 3U or so rack case that came with the mobo, a cheapo but usable PSU, the CPUs, 256MB of RAM, a floppy and a CD-ROM. I ditched the dustbuster-sounding fan for two temp controlled, 120mm CompUSA fans I got on closeout (it has a nice, filtered air intake, BTW), snagged another 1GB RAM for $18, tossed in a 20GB HDD I got from a free computer, installed a Matrox vid card I got for $5, and I was good to go.
<snip>
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Just remember- Ubuntu by default sets the CPU to "Power Saving", if you want it to "Shrub Away", it needs to be set to "Performance" (and turn off all the power saving features in the BIOS).
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Resident Linux fan and credit ho >My Shrubbers<
Proud member of the "Fry a CPU for breakfast club" |
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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| ohiomike wrote: |
Just remember- Ubuntu by default sets the CPU to "Power Saving", if you want it to "Shrub Away", it needs to be set to "Performance" (and turn off all the power saving features in the BIOS). |
Hmmm... Maybe that's why my first Ubuntu box seems to be such a dog. It has a 3700+ San Diego, but doesn't seem to shrub like it should. I'll have to take a look at that.
The Untangle (dual PIII box) has a mobo that's notorious for ACPI issues with linux. I turned all that stuff off in the BIOS right from the get-go, and that didn't seem to do much. I did some research and found out that one can set some boot switches in GRUB. I think it was "pci=noacpi" and "acpi=off" or something along those lines.
Untangle ordinarily runs standalone. Since I had no luck with that, I installed Ubuntu and then used a script they supply to essentially dovetail the Untangle kernel into Ubuntu. I had some serious "kernel panic" problems with it until I found and installed the acpi switches. It still has that problem sometimes, and I'm going to test it initially as a listener, and see whether or not it turns out to be the dealbreaker. Who knows, the firewall and so forth might still work even if the UI is frozen
Anyway, thanks for the hint - I'll see what I can find out with the San Diego box.
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ohiomike
Prince
Joined: 20 May 2007
Posts: 858
Location: Sometimes
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| Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Lloyd M. wrote: | | ohiomike wrote: |
Just remember- Ubuntu by default sets the CPU to "Power Saving", if you want it to "Shrub Away", it needs to be set to "Performance" (and turn off all the power saving features in the BIOS). |
Hmmm... Maybe that's why my first Ubuntu box seems to be such a dog. It has a 3700+ San Diego, but doesn't seem to shrub like it should. I'll have to take a look at that.
The Untangle (dual PIII box) has a mobo that's notorious for ACPI issues with linux. I turned all that stuff off in the BIOS right from the get-go, and that didn't seem to do much. I did some research and found out that one can set some boot switches in GRUB. I think it was "pci=noacpi" and "acpi=off" or something along those lines.
Untangle ordinarily runs standalone. Since I had no luck with that, I installed Ubuntu and then used a script they supply to essentially dovetail the Untangle kernel into Ubuntu. I had some serious "kernel panic" problems with it until I found and installed the acpi switches. It still has that problem sometimes, and I'm going to test it initially as a listener, and see whether or not it turns out to be the dealbreaker. Who knows, the firewall and so forth might still work even if the UI is frozen
Anyway, thanks for the hint - I'll see what I can find out with the San Diego box. |
Untangle- I would try
acpi=off pci=nobios
the nobios will force the kernel to look up all bus info and ignore what is possibly a bad BIOS.
San Diego- do not start service CPUSpeed or powernowd (depending on flavor of Linux).
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Resident Linux fan and credit ho >My Shrubbers<
Proud member of the "Fry a CPU for breakfast club" |
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 10:10 pm Post subject: |
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| ohiomike wrote: | Untangle- I would try
acpi=off pci=nobios
the nobios will force the kernel to look up all bus info and ignore what is possibly a bad BIOS.
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Cool. I'll try that.
BTW, there's litlle doubt that the BIOS sux.
| ohiomike wrote: |
San Diego- do not start service CPUSpeed or powernowd (depending on flavor of Linux). |
Hmmm... I am pretty much a complete n00b and don't know how to do that (yet). I did find out how to install the CPU frequency monitor applet, and it seems to be running WFO, but who knows what it does when I'm not on the computer?
The San Diego is still running Ubuntu 6.06LTS. The Untangle box has that kernel levered into an Ubuntu 8.04LTS install. I have that one covered, anyway (beyond finding the GRUB configuration file again). I'll just look up how to do the formber.
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