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Distributed Computing Projects Other Than Distributed.Net?
setec asks: "After the end of the ECDL Project last April, I fell out of the practice of participating in distributed processing projects. However, I'm gettin' the itch again, and I've run into a problem that many others have faced, I'm sure. Besides, distributed.net, there really aren't many cool projects out there. And none match the comraderie that the ECDL project offered... Where does a geek go to find a good distributed project?" Actually, I've always found the Great Internet Prime Search to be a worthwhile distributed project and moved my spare cycles there after getting tired with Distributed.Net. There's Seti@Home as well. What other distributed computing projects do you all contribute your idle processor time to?
I have my computer crunching numbers for seti@home when I am at work. Looking beyond our horizions for intelligent life strikes me as a worthwhile pursuit, plus I am sure somebody could use all of the processed radio data to learn something new (besides aliens) about the universe someday.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I donate all of my spare cycles to the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (not the Great Internet Prime Search). There is software available for many platforms (including Linux) here. This project currently holds the world record as the discoverer of the largest known prime.
Golem@Home is my favorite. Use spare cycles to design/evolve new robotic 'lifeforms'.
Entropia has several science and medical oriented research projects underway.
Popular Power is working on new influenza vaccines.
Folderol is doing Human Genome stuff.
There are dozens of others out there, but if nothing turns you on, the folks at the Cosm Project have an open source platform for building your own distributed computing project.
Browser? I barely know her!
Check out http://foldingathome.stanford.edu/ and help them write a Linux version of the client.
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Parabon is working on the "compute against cancer" project.
--
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Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
I suggest that anyone with some spare brain cycles port Folderol to Linux (source code is at Sourceforge). Strip out the screen saver graphics elements and it shouldn't be too hard (algorithms are usually pretty cross-platform).
I think you could probably whip together a pretty phat screen saver using multiple computers on a LAN... something that runs from screen to screen on a network... or a polygon-rendered landscape that is continuous across all the screens, like Sega does during game demos on their 8-seat Daytona USA arcade machine.
;)
It's not going to change the world, but you gotta admit, it'd be pretty cool.
Here.
Unfortunately, the mailing list hasn't been touched in months. It's a distributed web search system that could potentially index a lot of the web. It would be designed to minimise the load across busy links.
Basically, it needs more people to start. It is a sort of major project.
At least it's directly useful...
Mojo Nation is a distributed file sharing system, but we (the Evil Geniuses For A Better Tomorrow) plan to make it into a full distributed computation system next. It features integrated micropayments so you can get paid per CPU cycle that you donate.
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Microsoft is not the answer, Microsoft is the question. The answer is "no".
Check it out.
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Microsoft is not the answer, Microsoft is the question. The answer is "no".
A new company, United Devices, is try to make a profit (ugh!) off distributed computing. To get people to people to participate, the company will probably offer cash, frequent flyer miles and other giveaways.
For more:
Network World article on the company
United Devices Web site