Trog Dog today I downloaded an ISO image of DSL. I then burnt the ISO to a CD to make a bootable CD. However when I tried to boot my computer from the CD it would'nt work.

So Using Rawrite I made a Boot Floppy Disk. Now I can get DSL to run but must always boot from the Floopy and have the CD in the CD reader.

Ok this just means that your computer can't boot from cd - no biggie and you've already figured out how to make a boot floppy and boot from this - well done.

I am lost as to how I can make it that when I turn on my computer, it will boot from my hard drive to automatically load DSL.

I think I need to make a special partition using FDISK or something, I am lost from here on in!

That's correct, you need to create a swap partition and a linux partition. You can do this from DSL using cfdisk, but first before you do a full hard disk install - make sure that you can get everything working properly first. DSL is a Live distro so that means it can run from the CD without installing it to your hard disk - try before you buy so to speak.

I can only guess too that getting it to connect to my ISP will also be a nightmare, I just ain't a computer expert.

Thanks for the DSL info anyway.

First what type of connection to the internet do you have? dial up or broadband?

If it's dialup then chances are that you don't have a "proper" modem but rather a "winmodem" - one that requires the windows system to operate. Don't despair though as it may just take a bit of googling to get this up and running.

If it's broadband you will either have a usb connection or an ethernet connection between your computer and the modem. Either way disconnect your broadband modem and the cable from your new computer and plug it into the old computer, then reboot the old computer and see if DSL recognises it.

You've done well so far to figure out that you need to use a floppy disk to boot, from here you can do a full hard disk install, but make sure that DSL is going to work with all your hardware. Just take a deep breath, remember that you were ready to trash the old system anyway - so you can't make it any worse or break it any more than it is, and just because it doesn't work straight away doesn't mean that it never will. Installing and using Linux for the first time is pretty stressful when all you are used to is windows.

(And I only started to make the transition about 4 months ago)

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Larry, use canned air to clean that computer first and be sure that the power supply fan is running. It may be shutting down due to overheating.

I worked on a Gateway computer with a P2 processor last week. I believe the greatest limitation for running Rosetta will be RAM. In the P2 era, 64 MB was typical with Windows 98 SE. Another computer under repair with Win 98 SE has 128 MB. The fastest P2 is 450 MHz, and I just bought a used processor for $19. I had seen a remarkable improvement in boot time and computer response on the P2 computer by increasing the RAM from 64 to 128 MB (with Win 98 SE). For comparison purposes, my current Rosetta job is using more than 130 MB. Your new hard drive would be working hard to write/read the cache without more RAM. Newegg has Muskin memory, and $90 will get two sticks of 256 MB.

The P2 processors have passive heat sinks so you will need to have a case fan also, but those are cheap at about $8.

It is your choice. I put Windows XP on the P2 with 512 MB RAM and it makes a nice surfer and iTunes/iPod dock for my grandson. I wouldn't run a distributed computing project on it.

[Edit] This post is not in order of discussion. I forgot that I am reading the latest post at the top of the page, not bottom. [/Edit]

Vester & Trog Dog,

Many thanks for your help and comments.

The Pentium II machine which I was hoping to convert to a dedicated Rosetta Cruncher, is actually a very nice desktop PC which used to do all my Seti@Home crunching very happily. This was with the Old Classic Seti Screensaver.

It is a Siemens Nixdorf 'Xpert' with 300Mhz processor and 650MB Ram.

Therefore it has everything like fans etc. When I bought it, it had a 20GB HD and CD Reader. I then changed the CD Reader to HP 9300 CD Writer and put in a 40GB HD.These components are almost hardly used, so it's a shame not to get some use from them.

I have little doubt that I shall have any problems once Windows 98 is loaded, I then can load my AOL software and connect to the Internet.

Once I do this I am going to set up the BOINC software just to see what it does, and hopefully it will be able to sedately do some extra Rosetta crunching.

Anyhow if it does not run the BOINC software, I still will have another very nice desktop PC which I could use for things like word processing and storing stuff which is on my P4 to release some space on my Hard drive.

As far as the DSL is concerned, well I learnt how to burn a CD from an ISO image, and make a floppy disk from an IMG file, these are things I could not do last week at all, so it has been something of an education tinkering about with the DSL.

I do not have a broadband connection I have ISDN on my main PC, and the Pentium II has a 56k modem. I think it all should run very nicely once I receive my Windows disk which I bought quite legally by the way on eBay.

Anyhow once I get it up and running, I will try BOINC and see what happens.

So watch this space.

Larry

I'm also working on that Feet1st, I have asked two friends to start up.

Hopefully they will join.

...the first thing folks seem to worry about is the security aspects.

Well that's great. I know what you mean about the hesitations people have. In fact we started a whole thread on the subject. If you run in to something not already listed there, please add. The idea is that SOME concerns are ill-founded and perhaps someone knows a way to relieve a given concern.

For your security questions, here is a general BOINC link on the subject. Hope that helps.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

I'm also working on that Feet1st, I have asked two friends to start up.

Hopefully they will join.

...the first thing folks seem to worry about is the security aspects.

Well that's great. I know what you mean about the hesitations people have. In fact we started a whole thread on the subject. If you run in to something not already listed there, please add. The idea is that SOME concerns are ill-founded and perhaps someone knows a way to relieve a given concern.

For your security questions, here is a general BOINC link on the subject. Hope that helps.

The security aspect also came up when they did theri market research and installation trials prior to the BBC CCE boin project.
One biggy (afaik) was the fact the installation of the client gave a big 'this is not certified' type of message, procede with caution. Also 'credit' was also another puzzler, though renaming has happened i.e. tasks rather than job/work and work done rather than credit.
But you could point to them that the BBC are involved with it, the universities (long list), the UK's MET office, etc or look for som US large corporation that are involved (e.g. IBM use it at WCG with Gates foundation funding going over to WCG as well).

So if it is good enough for them, then it should be fine for home use.

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Team mauisun.org

Anyhow if it does not run the BOINC software, I still will have another very nice desktop PC which I could use for things like word processing and storing stuff which is on my P4 to release some space on my Hard drive.

There is no reason why it should not run BOINC/Rosetta - my lower spec'd PII does this, albeit slowly and for multiple projects.

Best of luck and hope that solve your problems.

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LarryM, I finished my tutorial even if it looks ugly.
I'd need a few beta testers to make sure I didn't forget about something crucial before I post it to the general public... Would you like to be one of them?

Anybody else that is interested is welcome, too.
Requisites are: a spare to-be crunshing machine (preferably old crap) with 128Mb RAM, about 1Gb of HDD and a floppy drive. Processor is up to you, my slowest machine is a P2 300Mhz. Oh yeah, and about an hour of your time available. Well... make it two =)


If you're available, send an email to: /tribaal/(AT)/tiscali/(dot)/fr
(remove the / and let (dot) be . and (at) be @)

- trib'

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LarryM, I finished my tutorial even if it looks ugly.
I'd need a few beta testers to make sure I didn't forget about something crucial before I post it to the general public... Would you like to be one of them?

Anybody else that is interested is welcome, too.
Requisites are: a spare to-be crunshing machine (preferably old crap) with 128Mb RAM, about 1Gb of HDD and a floppy drive. Processor is up to you, my slowest machine is a P2 300Mhz. Oh yeah, and about an hour of your time available. Well... make it two =)


If you're available, send an email to: /tribaal/(AT)/tiscali/(dot)/fr
(remove the / and let (dot) be . and (at) be @)

- trib'

Tribaal,

I got Window 98 setup today on my old Pentium II. It works great, however I made a mistake, it has only 64Mb memory so Rosetta would not send it any work when I run the BOINC Client.

I sure would be interested in Beta testing, but I think I need to install some more memory in this machine!

Otherwise at least I have another backup PC on which I can store software, documents etc.

So I guess I will be staying amognst the "Members with 1 host" for a bit of time yet.

However I thought there were others running Rosetta on Pentium II's with just 64Mb RAM, maybe I am mistaken.

If there are, how did you get Rosetta to send you work?

Thanks again to everybody for helping.

I guess the server would send you work anyway... I might be wrong, but I'd take it the result would just be longer to crunsh, possibly over the deadline, because your computer would have to swap memory all the time.

I might be wrong though, never tried to add a PC with only 64Mb RAM.

- trib'

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I guess the server would send you work anyway... I might be wrong, but I'd take it the result would just be longer to crunsh, possibly over the deadline, because your computer would have to swap memory all the time.

I might be wrong though, never tried to add a PC with only 64Mb RAM.

- trib'

No Trib' It seems if your memory is < or = 64Mb, Rosetta will not send you work.

I got red messages when I ran BOINC saying work would not be sent.However my computer still shows up as a host.

I don't know why, it used to crunch WU's for Seti@Home without any problems.

Hi Larry

It might be worth us setting up a hardware swaps/donations thread. I've got a P2 400 CPU that you can have, but unless you're in the UK then its probably not economical to post it to you - the same money would probably buy you a 1GHz Celeron plus slot1 tualatin adapter fron ebay that would probably get 4x the work done (as the cache is full speed on the P3s, half speed on the P2s).

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Hi Larry

It might be worth us setting up a hardware swaps/donations thread. I've got a P2 400 CPU that you can have, but unless you're in the UK then its probably not economical to post it to you - the same money would probably buy you a 1GHz Celeron plus slot1 tualatin adapter fron ebay that would probably get 4x the work done (as the cache is full speed on the P3s, half speed on the P2s).

Hi DCDC,

It's very kind of you indeed. However, I gave the P2 a go and it did'nt work.

It was worth getting the Windows 98 to get the thing going, but if it won't run Rosetta, then it's too bad, I have other uses I can put the computer to.

Looks like I'll just keep crunching on the P4.