Folding@Home on FreeBSD & stats

[Mystical Kimchi]

I contacted whoever was running the Folding@Home Facebook page a few weeks ago asking if a native FreeBSD client would be possible. He suggested posting about it on the forums. I hope that the devs do consider making a native client. For the time being, however, someone did package the Linux version to make it available on FreeBSD, and I now have it running on my server. But even if a native client is not available for FreeBSD, I would ask the devs to make it possible to report the statistics for other operating systems like FreeBSD. Perhaps the client can be made to autodetect the operating system even running non-natively, or, if that's not possible because the Linux emulation makes the client think it's running on Linux instead of FreeBSD, make it possible for users to enter a configuration option to report a different operating system. That way the stats page can reflect how many people are using an operating system other than Win/Mac/Linux.

[Drizzt321]

I second this. My home server runs FreeBSD. I could go ahead and throw on a linux VM, but I'd prefer native, and thus native reporting of OS type.

[gorby]

Hello,

+1 for that kind of request

--
Gorby.

[Drizzt321]

I'll add another +1, since my home NAS is FreeBSD.

Or at a minimum allow reporting of host OS if running in a VM/container, that way you can make accurate decisions supported by data about supported client OSes.

[PantherX]

Welcome to the F@H Forum Drizzt321,

You can run F@H in a VM but there might be performance loss due to virtualization. There's an unofficial release by VMWare here: https://flings.vmware.com/vmware-applia ... lding-home

[Hopfgeist]

[...] Perhaps the client can be made to autodetect the operating system even running non-natively, or, if that's not possible because the Linux emulation makes the client think it's running on Linux instead of FreeBSD, make it possible for users to enter a configuration option to report a different operating system. That way the stats page can reflect how many people are using an operating system other than Win/Mac/Linux.

I'll throw my support behind this request. I have managed to get the Linux client running on NetBSD in its Linux emulation. It performs well, downloads and uploads WUs, and statistics get reported fine (albeit as Linux).

Control connections do not work, neither http nor proprietary, it seems that some socket option syscall is not implemented properly in NetBSD's Linux emulation, but I can live with that. It beats running a Linux VM, both performance-wise and from a system-usability point of view. Besides the virtualisation overhead there is the problem that from the host operating system point of view, all guest operating system CPU time is considered "system" time and thus prioritised relatively high.

Cheers.

[JimboPalmer]

I have bad news.

What normally happens is that some 'deep pockets' partner funds development on their Platform if you notice these dates, they match when F@H became available on these platforms;

https://foldingathome.org/about/partners/

As such, one would look for a 'Deep Pockets' sponsor for FreeBSD, but I doubt you will find one.