Overfoldix II

[David]

As many of you may know, quite a while ago started development on a folding OS called Overfoldix. I never quite got it to work, but Gator (not seen him around for a while?) managed to get it to work, as he had access to VMWare and the like for testing, and used executables from the current version of Linux Mandrake at the time to get it folding. Later on I updated it with the latest version of the FaH client and the latest flags.

I know now Arkaine has set up Overclockix (great job btw - I have had a quick shot of it and it looks great ) is there still a need for Overfoldix?

If I did make "Overfoldix II" it would be as follows:

- Designed for systems with 96MB of RAM (currently Overfoldix needs 64MB for the RAMDisk plus RAM for the client) or more
- Just support for the FaH client at first

Later on (Once the basic system was going OK):

- Support for SMP
- Samba support
- FTP/SSH support
- Perhaps a small webserver so you could follow your progress via a webpage on another machine.

However, before I roll up my sleeves and try and find time to do this I want to know roughly what people think.

I have gotten a bit rusty with regards to Linux stuff and I feel this would be a great way for me to get back into it.

Thanks

 

[Arkaine23]

I say go for it!

Even though overclockix can run in text mode, it doesn't create a home directory and doesn't fold automatically when you choose to boot in text mode. Thus to have the easy instant folding, you need to boot graphically and need more than 96mb of ram. For lower end systems, overFOLDix can still do what overclockix can't.

I also think you'll get a nice chance to brush up on your linux skills. Building Overclockix got me back up to speed on a lot of things after several months of being out of the loop.

I've got shell scripts you can use to implement monitoring clients and startup scripts for folding with multple clients, etc. Perhaps in sharing these scripts, they can get smoothed out.

One big thing is to get as many NIC and modem drivers in there as you can. That's something that has made Overclockix stand above other Knoppixes- its support of integrated Nforce2 NICs- though those drivers are proprietary so don't go an tell Nvidia.


One thing I've really wanted to work on is having a bootbale folding CD that will prompt the user to samba-mount a windows share on their network and create/resume folding from there. That makes monitoring via EM3 very easy and takes out of the equation the whole ramdisk issue with potential WU loss. I've got a smbmounting script, I'd just need to implement echo & test commands in it so it would prompt the user to enter variables such as hostname and sharename.

 

[Blue_Dragon1521]

I dont really mind at all...

 

[KFB]

Hey David. I remember you were working on OverFoldix almost 2 years ago, before I went to boot camp, and I was trying to help. Seems like with Gator's help you/we almost got it working. Then I left for Parris Island and lost contact with you. I had lots of computers back then, but now I only have room for 1 in my barracks room. So, I personally will probably not be able to use OverFoldix, unless I build a rig to run in my parent's basement back in Kentucky. It would have to be very stable, since I only get to visit home once or twice a year, but it could make for a nice project.
Anyway, I would like to once again offer any help I can contribute toward this project.

 

[RadiationMan]

I would really appreciate a new Overfoldix. I currently have an AMD K6-2 533MHz that doesnt have enough memory to use Overclockix, yet Overfoldix should be good. I also will be aquiring some older machines (PII's & PIII's) from the hospital where I work. They won't release the hard drives to me because they have patient information on them and they want to protect patient confidentiality. Overfoldix will work well for these also.

Does Overfoldix fold faster than Overclockix, or other OS's, due to it's minimalist nature?

 

[bubba gump]

This would be really nice for the minimal systems...I'm sure some people have odd combinatins of SDRAM for there mini farms. And you could probably find a way to run this off of a CF card w/a CF -> IDE Adapter...dunno how much that would cost or how much space overfoldix would use but it would be really quiet. No HDD accesses

If you need any help in testing or something else my skills are minimal but I can learn fast

Fold and Frag on
Brian

 

[KFB]

Bump.
David, where ya at?

 

[David]

Bump.
David, where ya at?

Part way through setting up gentoo on my lappy so I can build OFDX over the hols, in between helping set up my dads new laptop and printer and stuff.