SETI@Home FAQ: SETI@Home Updates and Data Distribution
From Unofficial BOINC Wiki
[edit] General
This FAQ discusses issues with updates to the SETI@Home Project's Science Application and how often it will be updated.
[edit] How often will SETI@Home be updated?
The SETI@Home Science Application will only be updated on an as-needed basis.
Once the Science Application has passed tests and is validated to perform the science as expected, there are not many things that will need to be changed.
Since I have been doing work with SETI@Home, including the SETI@Home Classic there have only been a few updates. I don't recall some of the exact dates, but this is what I have for the SETI@Home Project:
- 2000-03??? v2.04 was released, bug-fixes and security-fixes.
- 2000-07-19 Started SETI@Home
- 2000-07-06 Public beta-testing of v3 was started with v2.66.
- 2000-10-04 v3.00 (gui) was released, with optimized FFTs, and code to detect Pulses and Triplets.
- 2000-10-08 The windows-cli v3.00 was released.
- 2000-12-11 v3.03 (gui) was released, doing more detailed searching.
- 2000-12-15 The windows-cli v3.03 was released.
- 2001-02-01 Stopped accepting results from older clients than v3.03. This is actually the only mandatory upgrade in SETI@Home "classic" for windows-users, before "classic" is shut down and needs to switch to SETI@Home/BOINC if wants to continue.
- 200x-xx-xx a couple gui-only upgrades, fixing screensaver-bugs.
- 2003-04-08 The windows-cli v3.08 was released. Changes since v3.03 is a security-update, and a bug-fix for -9 result_overflow-wu ocassionally giving result-size larger than 32KB before further processing was stopped.
- 2004-03-01 BOINC Update (when I started)
- 2004-06-22 SETI@Home/BOINC was officially started.
- 2005-??-?? Processing algorithm update (forthcoming)
With most of the User Interface issues and features will be related to the BOINC Manager (defined, using: BOINC Owner's Manual). For a discussion on those issues go to the BOINC FAQ.
The only other reason to make changes to the Science Application is if there is a demonstrated need to change the processing to enhance the results produced by the processing or if there is a critical flaw discovered in the baseline code.
[edit] What about changes to the BOINC Software, will we see frequent changes to it?
[edit] BOINC Client Update Frequency
The BOINC Client Software will be updated on an as-needed basis. Once the program has most of the essential features it is likely that the update interval will be on an semi-annual to an annual basis. As part of this there will be additions to add features that become desired and a determination that there is value to include the change. With the project being Open Source many people can work on continual refinement and with this larger pool of talent it is likely that we will see many nifty and useful features added in to the basic software.
At the moment, however, it is happening on a much more frequent basis. There is sharp debate on the Forums about the quality of some of the changes. For my own part, I have not seen many of the problems that other Participants have seen. That being said, Your Mileage May Vary.
When the BOINC Client Software is updated the Participant will have to do this manually. For a detailed guide see:
See BOINC FAQ: Updates to the BOINC Software for details.
[edit] Why am I seeing several Science Applications for one project?
A single "Project" like SETI@Home may have sub-projects doing slightly different processing depending on the needs of the project. For example, you can anticipate that SETI@Home may have a Science Application for each of these different aspects of the main project:
- Arecibo data (the current location of the data gathering)
- Southern Hemisphere data
- Rechecked candidates
- AstroPulse
Then again, they may not. Hard to trust these scientists. They are so sneaky. Give them a couple million dollars and pretty soon everything causes cancer.
[edit] What if a bug in a Science Application makes the results worthless?
Actually, a bug that invalidates all of the processing is not likely. Again, using SETI@Home Classic as a basis we can say with confidence that the bulk of the data has been evaluated and the samples that have just too much noise or some other error have been identified. So, even if we find that a massive and critical error has been made, we have less to do because we have already done one of the hard parts. We have a good idea of what data is not worth looking at again for almost any reason.
That aside, the actual limiting factor for SETI@Home is on the data gathering end still. We still have work to do, but, each year faster and faster computers are available and we are using them on an increasing basis. When I started SETI@Home I got one result a day if I recall correctly. Now I am seeing 15-16 a day (early 2004) on my Macintosh PowerMac dual G5 and Pentium 4 3.0 GHz with Hyper-Threading (HT).
With continual increases in processing power we may make a decision to increase the processing to look for additional signal characteristics to improve the chances of making the critical discovery.
[edit] I don't want to use automatic updates can I do it manually?
Well, no. You can only update the BOINC Client Software, in fact you have to, manually. The SETI@Home Science Application will be updated automatically, and at the current time there is no control over that feature.
[edit] My work or school doesn't allow the use of automatic updates can I do it manually?
(27 views)
[edit] I don't want to (or cannot) update the SETI@Home science application automatically, now what?
(20 views)
[edit] There is an update to the BOINC Software. Do I have to install it?
(29 views)
[edit] If there is a new SETI@Home Science Application do I have to do anything?
(18 views)
[edit] I still have work units in my buffer (queue). What is going to happen to them because of the updated SETI@Home Science Application?
Each Work Unit issued to you will be processed by a specific version of the SETI@Home Science Application. When those Work Units that you have already downloaded have been processed the obsolete SETI@Home Science Application will be removed.
All new Work Units issued will be processed with the new SETI@Home Science Application. You will see the version of the SETI@Home Science Application that will be used to process all of the currently queued Work Units in the BOINC Manager's Work Tab.
The Project can also change the Work Units in your work buffer so that they will be processed by the new Science Application. This is to allow for the occasions where the old Science Application was returning bad Results and it should not be used any longer.
Again, all of this is handled in a way that is transparent to the Participant.
[edit] Why am I getting work for previous years? Why am I not getting current (new) Work Units?
The data that is recorded from the Arecibo Telescope is stored on tape. These tapes are then sent to the Seti Team at Berkeley. Matt Lebofsky, one of the Project Developers, has the responsibility of choosing which tapes get split into Work Units. He does this in a psuedo-random fashion. Data from older tapes are no less valuable than data currently being recorded.
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