[Debian Wiki] Update of "BOINC" by SteffenMoeller

Fri Sep 21 20:14:50 UTC 2012

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The "BOINC" page has been changed by SteffenMoeller:
http://wiki.debian.org/BOINC?action=diff&rev1=157&rev2=158

Comment:
bit of wording, more of optical rearrangement

  #language en
- #pragma section-numbers 2
+ #pragma section-numbers 0
  #pragma keywords BOINC, Grid Computing, Volunteer Computing, Open Source, Debian
  #pragma description Accompaning Wiki-page for users and developers of the Debian package of BOINC, the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing
  ~-[[DebianWiki/EditorGuide#translation|Translation(s)]]: none-~
  ----
- = BOINC - Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing =
+ = Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing =

  ||<style="text-align:center"> {{http://boinc.berkeley.edu/logo/www_logo.gif}} ||<style="background-color: #FFE0E0;"> BOINC comes as an official part of Debian and with it of Ubuntu, Mint and many others. Just install the DebianPts:boinc package. Then start the `boincmgr` application to join the project of your liking. <<BR>> <<BR>> The remainder of this page helps the maintainers of these packages to better organise themselves. It may serve the curiosity of the one or other casual visitor and possibly attracts more helping hands. Ignore it at first.||
  ||<style="text-align:center"> {{http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/images/seti_logo.png}} ||<style="background-color: #FFF0F0;"> BOINC, under your control, downloads and runs external applications. Debian supports many more platforms than any scientific group. And with Debian, you have confidence to see have a direct correspondence between the source Debian distributes and the application one runs. For SETI, we have hence packaged also their scientific application as DebianPts:boinc-app-seti. Desire for more such redistributions? Contact us.||
  ||<style="text-align:center"> {{http://packages.debian.org/Pics/openlogo-50.png}} ||<style="background-color: #FFF7F7;">BOINC 7.0.27 is in testing, the upcoming Wheezy distribution. It seems like boinc-app-seti, just like the later BOINC packages, will eventually be shipped via [[http://backports.debian.org|backports.debian.org]], not with the initial release. Ubuntu also provides backports to earlier versions.||

- ----
- <<TableOfContents(3)>>
- 
- Separate pages were created for:
-  * BOINC[[/Development]] - developing the BOINC Debian packages
-  * BOINC[[/Projects]] - projects that support Debian architectures -- 'everyone with exotic platforms please help to maintain'
-  * BOINC[[/Server]] - running a BOINC server on Debian (experimental)
-  * BOINC[[/Troubleshooting]] - problem solving and FAQs
- 
  <<Anchor(Introduction)>>
- == Introduction ==
+ =  =

  This page accompanies an [[Alioth]] [[http://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-boinc/|project of the same name]] on the creation of respective [[DebianPts:boinc|Debian package for BOINC]]. A detailed introduction to [[http://boinc.berkeley.edu/|BOINC]] itself is available on the wiki pages of 
- [[WikiPedia:Berkeley_Open_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing|en.wikipedia.org]]. In short, BOINC provides an infrastructure for distributed computing that asks for volunteers world-wide to offer their compute power for a good cause. There is no central organisation but every contributor decides by h(im|er)self what project to support. Everything is Open Source, for the contributors and the scientists with computational demands alike. Hence, everybody can do something beneficial to the world at large, just by running an unnotified application in the background. 
+ [[WikiPedia:Berkeley_Open_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing|en.wikipedia.org]]. In short, BOINC provides an infrastructure for distributed computing that asks for volunteers world-wide to offer their compute power for a good cause. There is no central organisation but every contributor decides by h(im|er)self what project to support. Everything of this infrastructure is Open Source, for the contributors and the scientists with computational demands alike. Hence, everybody can do something beneficial to the world at large, just by running an unnotified application in the background. 
+ 
+ 
+ ||'''BOINC[[/Development]]'''                ||'''BOINC[[/Projects]]''' || '''BOINC[[/Server]]''' || '''BOINC[[/Troubleshooting]]'''||
+ ||developing the BOINC Debian packages ||projects that support Debian architectures -- 'everyone with exotic platforms please help to maintain' || running a BOINC server on Debian (experimental) || problem solving and FAQs ||
+ 

  === Benefits of Debian for BOINC ===

- The main criticism of the BOINC project is that it would be difficult to install. Well, to install packages in [[Debian]] is not difficult and we give explicit instructions for BOINC below. The motivation to create packages for this worthwhile cause requires no further explanation, maybe except for the following hint: Debian is special for its support of many different architectures, which is only sustainable because of an automated compilation of novel packages. Thus, the provision of BOINC on Debian significantly contributes to the acceptance of the project in all these non-mainstream architectures.
+ There are to major criticisms of the BOINC project:
+  * One is that it would be difficult to install. Well, to install packages in [[Debian]] is not difficult and we give explicit instructions for BOINC below.
+  * The other is that one does not know what is executed on one's own machine since a foreign binary is downloaded. This is helped by the redistribution of selected scientific applications as additional Debian packages - everyone can inspect also their source code and build the packages in an automated way.
+ The motivation to create packages for this worthwhile cause requires no further explanation, maybe except for the following hint: Debian is special for its support of many different architectures, which is only sustainable because of an automated compilation of novel packages. Thus, the provision of BOINC on Debian significantly contributes to the acceptance of the project in all these non-mainstream architectures.

  Some users of Debian install the package DebianPkg:popularity-contest. It sends anonymous statistics on package usage to a [[http://popcon.debian.org|dedicated site]]. Follow [[http://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=boinc]] for an overview on the installation rates of boinc-associated packages in Debian. You will find the boinc packages to have a much steeper curve than most regular packages, i.e., these are installed more frequently than the number of Debian users grows. And, we are competing nicely with high-flying packages like the statistics environment R. The latest numbers are retrievable also in the shell:
  {{{