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Distributed Computing Projects Other Than Distributed.Net?

Posted by Cliff on from the can-spare-BOGOmips-for-food dept.

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?

5 of 12 comments (clear)

  1. GIMPS by cbane · · Score: 3

    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.

  2. You must not have looked very hard. by blameless · · Score: 5

    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!
  3. Folding@Home by imac.usr · · Score: 3

    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.
  4. Screen Saver by Marcus+Aanerud · · Score: 2

    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. ;)

  5. Check out Dizz-Net by jfunk · · Score: 2

    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...