Simple client?

[theteofscuba]

I am putting off recruiting new F@H users until an easy to use unified client is available. when it is released there should be a mass media frenzy for it and capitalize on that. i suggest that in anticipation, compile a list of journalists that would be ideal to communicate with once a unified client is available to the public. I can easily obtain local media contacts. but to make it on the local tv news would probably require Professor Pande to give video taped explanation.

[HaloJones]

With or without a unified client, there is still much to be learned so why wait? I agree it may not be the easiest system to set up and a unified client will massively help but until then, recruit the tech-savvy.

[GeneralRavel]

I have found recruiting less tech savvy people for folding to be mitigated quite a bit with RealVNC or one of it's many other incarnations. At least as long as you are willing to be the tech support guy all the time

[bruce]

A unified client is no panacea. You want a SIMPLE client that won't send people away because of it's complexity, and FAH already has a simple client. Why can't people recommend a single classic client? I see nothing wrong with that recommendation for anyone new. Too many people jump in and start recommending SMP or GPU clients because they earn more points and do more work (and that's good, too) but that's not in keeping with the desire for a simple client that anyone can install.

Tell them to run it until a newer version comes out called "V7" and reassess the situation then. By that time, they may have developed enough experience to deal with all the options that will inevitably be present in any kind of a unified client.

As an example, let me point to the v6.30 SMP client. It's already a partially unified client. It can be configured as either a Classic client or a SMP client.

Repeatedly, I see people urging everyone to use either -smp (N-1) or maybe -smp "to use all of your cores and to maximize your points." Then, repeatedly, I see people complain because their client downloaded a Classic WU that "only uses 25% of my CPU" (or some other number, depending on how many cores they have). This is followed by explanations of how to adding -smp, ALWAYS being sure it is specified, and instructions to wait until the current unit finishes and it will then use all of the resources. About then, somebody asks what kind of GPU they have and we're off talking about setting priority, setting env vars, reducing -smp N to -smp (n-1), etc. etc. etc.

Configuration of a fully unified client will potentially be that complicated (plus also having to deal with the cores for the GPU) although some may be hidden from view.

Tell them up-front that the Classic client is not expected to all of their resources, and that trying to do that is complicated enough that you don't recommend it until they gain confidence by donating a single CPU core to FAH "for now". The motivation should be to start small, but do useful work until something more complicated makes sense.

[theteofscuba]

* automatically sense all available openCL targets and make full use of these targets by default (recommended)
* manual override to tell the science cores to only run on user-specified openCL targets