Ubuntu Tutorials

Its been a while since I’ve blogged about my Folding@Home management tool, now called Origami.  There was a lull there in development for a while, but this last week I’ve done probably 20+ commits, which puts us up to version 0.6.6.1.  There are now also two branches being maintained on Launchpad (bzr).  One for trunk, which has the latest-greatest features, and another branch called debian which will track the package source files.  As usual, if anyone would like to check out the code and offer improvements feel free.

I also wanted to announce that it is now available in package form via my Launchpad PPA!  Launchpad FTW!  The current .deb is based on the current debian branch.  If any packagers want to take a look and tell me how to improve the package (this is my first one afterall) I’d be very interested.

I should also mention that with the rename there has bit a bit of an overhaul in the code base.  Origami is not directly backwards compatible with folding.sh! I have to say that the simplest method for the transition is uninstalling folding.sh (sudo folding.sh erase) and then installing the Origami package.  This will cause you to lose your current work progress, so maybe wait until you’ve just started a new work-unit and give it a go.

Installing Origami via Launchpad PPA

To install Origami using Launchpad’s Personal Package Archive system, simply add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file or “Add” in System > Admin > Software Sources.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/christer.edwards/ubuntu hardy main

Once that line is in your config file make sure to update (sudo apt-get update) and then install the origami package.  Currently it is only built for Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy”, but by the end of the week I’ll have the other supported releases built as well.  (To install for a previous release simply replace “hardy” with “release” in your configuration.)

I’ve been happy with all the feedback so far.  Thanks to those that have reported bugs and helped me make Origami even better.  If anyone finds any additional bugs or has feature requests please let me know!

If this article has been helpful, please consider linking to it.

I’m trying to come up with a more creative name for my folding @ home management tool.  I put up a quick poll on the Ubuntu Forums.  If you care to offer a vote or suggestions please take a minute and drop by.

folding.sh renaming poll

I wanted to quickly toss something out there for all of you on the interweb.  I spent some time last evening cleaning up a few of my code projects.  If you have been using either of them you may want to update.

apturl for Gnome Do

I spent some time in the #gnome-do channel last nite seeing what needed to be done for the apturl plugin to become better supported.  The end result is that its much cleaner, properly licensed and has been submitted to the do-plugins branch on launchpad for possible future inclusion in the “official” plugins package.  If you have been using the apturl plugin for Gnome Do and saw some recent breakage, you can download the new known-to-be-working-on-0.4 version here.

GoogleSecure Greasemonkey Script

I’m a big fanboy of data encryption, including encrypting as much of my web traffic as I can.  I hacked together a small Greasemonkey script long ago that will force encryption on any supported Google application (gmail, reader, docs, calendar, etc), and recently added Twitter as well.  I guess that might be cause for a name change, but I didn’t get that far.  I would like to extend the list of sites that it supports, so if you know of any sites that offer https on login but don’t require (but support) https session-wide, let me know.  If you’re interested in this tool you can download Greasemonkey here and GoogleSecure here.

folding.sh

I also have time set aside today to try and squash two remaining bugs in folding.sh.  For all of you great folks that have been using folding.sh, expect an update fairly soon.

Minor update available for folding.sh. For those interested the download is available in the traditional location as well as on Launchpad. Still working on a package folks.

• updated config file control, allowing commenting in the ~/.foldingrc
• added ‘migrate’ function, easing transitioning to new hardware
• added ‘version’ function as standalone (vs output via ‘help’)
• misc cleanup

As usual, if you are using folding.sh as a front-end to your folding @ home the only thing you need to do to upgrade is overwrite your current copy of folding.sh with the new one. It will not affect your current folding data or processes and does not require anything is restart.

A few of us from the Ubuntu Folding Team setup an IRC channel today for support and discussion of folding. If you’d like to join us drop by in #ubuntu-folding (freenode).

You can find support for folding.sh (my application) if I’m around, or discuss other methods for running the distributed computing client.

Links:

Download folding.sh

Ubuntu Folding Team

If you’ve followed this blog over the last six months you probably know I’ve been developing a little piece of software that facilitates in installing (and MUCH more!) the Folding @ Home distributed computing project on Linux machines.  I’ve had a great lot of fun writing and developing this software, and based on the number of emails I’ve received on the topic many of you have found it useful as well.

I would very much like to see this packaged and available in time for Ubuntu 8.04 in the Ubuntu repositories, but I’d even settle for dropping it in my PPA on Launchpad.  The only problem is I can’t seem to wrap my poor head around package creation.  I’ve tried and tried, and I’ll keep trying but in the meantime I’d really appreciate a volunteer stepping in and throwing it together for me.  Perhaps even documenting for me how it would be done so I could continue to handle it in the future.

If you’re up for it please contact me and let me know.  The current stable is 0.6.1 available here.

I know we just had a folding release earlier today, and it is still super-awesome, but I had a little time to think this afternoon and I added a little bit more to it.  I went with my wife to the doctor regarding the baby that is on the way and, well, you know how the doctors make you wait.  I had some time in the waiting room to think about the features that were added in 0.6.  Well, I tweaked one of them to make it a bit more flexible.

In the 0.5.2 release I added a default cron job to folding.sh that would allow the user to stop/start the folding client at a specified time.  This was disabled by default however and would require manually uncommenting a few lines.  I added an option during the installer now to activate this by default for those that might want to make use of it.

Also, it should be noted that one of the switches introduced in 0.6 has changed (hopefully this is a small enough window that it doesn’t bite anyone).  In 0.6 the option for specifying 64bit was -c|–core.  This has changed to -p|–proc and -c|–cron is now the switch to activate the cron job by default.  Use is “./folding.sh -c 1″ (1 on, 0 off)

Not a huge update, but an update nonetheless.

Downloads available as usual:

folding-0.6.1.tar.bz2

folding-0.6.1.tar.gz

bzr branch http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~christer.edwards/folding/main

Well, its time again for another folding.sh update. This release, version 0.6, is a MAJOR update from all previous versions. This is one that I’m really proud of and I’ve tested pretty heavily. To give you an idea, I installed Stanford’s Folding @ Home client to ten machines on my network–all different distributions–by running one command. Complete automation locally or remotely is what I’m after with this release! Let’s dive right in with the additions in this release!

• Eight new features added in 0.6!
• Features now divided into local and remote
• 32bit or 64bit support (32bit by default)
• Installer now takes username and team as (optional) settings at installation
• Network deployment tool is now much smarter and more flexible
• Network tools read from a local .foldingrc file (list of IPs or resolvable hostnames)
• Network deployment allows for same same features of local installation (username, team, 64bit)
• Local – installation, renaming, archiving, restoring, monitoring and removal
• Remote – installation, renaming, archiving, restoring, monitoring and removal
• Re-wrote README file completely for clarity
• Installer will now check and fail if already installed
• Tested on Ubuntu 6.06-8.04 alpha1, RHEL5, Fedora 6-8, centOS 5, Oracle Enterprise 4, Foresight 1.4.1, SLES 10, openSUSE 10.1

Big thanks to the “awesomely awesome” Stuart Jansen for help on this release. I’d still be pulling my hair out on getopts if it weren’t for your help!

It is very much suggested to update to this release for all the added features. note: to update simply overwrite your current folding.sh with the new version. Re-installation is not needed.

I would appreciate any feedback anyone has on folding.sh. What features would you like to see added/removed? What bugs have you found, etc. Please submit any questions or bugs to https://launchpad.net/folding.

Download

folding.sh can be downloaded via the following two images or via bzr:

folding-0.6.tar.bz2

folding-0.6.tar.gz

bzr branch http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~christer.edwards/folding/main

I wish I was announcing the release of Folding 0.6 today but I made a mistake with some of the revisions I had and lost them.  Looks like I’ll be starting over on those additions.  Those are (for those that are curious), a local backup and restore utility and also a remote backup and restore.  The remote is going to take a bit more work, but I’m looking forward to that one the most.

In any event, 0.5.2.2 has a few really minor changes.  Some code cleanup (organizing a few more items into functions) and fixing a pending bug on Launchpad.

If you are currently using 0.5.2.1 you’ll want to update.

HTTP Downloads

folding-0.5.2.2.tar.bz2

folding-0.5.2.2.tar.gz

BZR

bzr branch http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~christer.edwards/folding/main

Just three days after releasing 0.5.2 I’m repenting and reverting a bit with a 0.5.2.1 patch. This removes the renaming prompt at the main installer. Based on a bit more testing and user feedback I realize adding that feature at that point was not the best idea. In the future, installing as normal and then running the -r, –rename function will handle updating the user information.

This is a minor update, but is recommended for new installations. If you’ve already installed folding using this script updating won’t really give you anything you don’t have.

Downloads available here:

folding-0.5.2.1.tar.gz

folding-0.5.2.1.tar.bz2

folding-0.5.2.1.zip

You can also pull the latest development branch from bzr via:

 bzr branch http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~christer.edwards/folding/main

Enjoy

As usual, please send feedback in the form of bugs to https://bugs.launchpad.net/folding