Beginners Guide to Einstein@home & BOINC

[0iD]

Just because my lurvely opteron rig doesn't like UD, I've signed up for the Einstein@Home project as part of Boinc & took the liberty of starting a Hexus team for those interested.
<linky>

Einstein@home is a program that uses your computer's idle time to search for spinning neutron stars (also called pulsars) using data from the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors. Einstein@home is a World Year of Physics 2005 project supported by the American Physical Society (APS) and by a number of international organizations.

Further info on Pulsars here, and further info on the project can be found here.



Once you've signed up to Einstein@home you'll recieve an Einstein@Home account confirmation. In this mail you'll get a project url & account key. Keep these handy as you'll need them in a minute.

Now it's time to download the BOINC client software (if you haven't done so already). Download the windows/linux/mac installer from this page. Once it's downloaded run the executable (for windows), and follow the instructions.

At this stage you need to choose what type of installation suits you. You have 3 options as you can sees here:

So make your choice wisely. My personal pref is always run as a service. (If you want to stop it at any time either stop it from the task manager, or preferably open a command prompt & type 'net stop boinc', sans quotes. This way you can re-start it by typing 'net start boinc')

For a service install it'll probably ask you for service account credentials

If you enter a password to logon or have a system username password enter them here, else make something up . Then you will get a confirmation box

Hit Yes to intstall & away you go.



If you do not select the 'as a service option you can forget that bit & install as normal.



When BOINC starts select the Projects tab & then hit the 'Attach to new project' button. This will then ask you for the url & account key you were e-mailed earlier. Cut & paste them in & hit OK. Now boinc will start to run system checks & download any required updates & of course your work units.

Now you have the BINC client software you can attach to more than just Einstein@home. There is also Climate Prediction.net, Seti@home and many more. Just join & attach to a new project as before.

Further installation notes for the individual installers can be found on the software download page.

[mike_w]

I'm currently doing Einstein and Climate Prediction on Linux - it's easy to install if you just follow the instructions, and you can just copy the directory over onto a new install and it'll carry on from where it left off!