:: 30-Nov-1999 15:51 (Tuesday) ::

Just a quick update, the rebuild of the rc5_64_master table is churning.
We’re at about 14 million rows (of 20 million) and it’s been running for
about 12 hours or so.

:: 29-Nov-1999 21:22 (Monday) ::

Thanks to some very dedicated snooping on the part of Bruce Wilson, our
“hired gun” transact-sql guru, we’ve got a somewhat better handle on the
problems with statsbox. The good news is, we now have a very long list
of things that we now know /aren’t/ the problem. :)

The bad news is, we still don’t know what the problem is. We’ve finally
decided that the next step is to rebuild the big rc5_64_master table
from the ground up. The involves copying 20 million records or so, and
then generating new indexes on that data. I suspect it will take a non-
trivial number of hours to churn through this data, so please be patient
as it progresses. To speed things as much as possible, you’ll see that
the stats web site has been disabled while it runs.

Once the table is rebuilt, we’ll have a much better feel for where we stand
on the slowdown issue.

:: 29-Nov-1999 16:57 (Monday) ::

The following clients have been updated/added

– dnetc-linux-x86-glibc2.tar.gz linux [glibc2/x86] v2.8002.447
– dnetc-linux-x86-libc5.tar.gz linux [libc5/x86 ] v2.8002.447

Enjoy!

:: 28-Nov-1999 19:56 (Sunday) ::

The following clients have been updated/added

– dnetc-irix6-mips-n32.tar.gz irix 6.x [MIPS/n32] v2.8002.447
– dnetc-solaris26-x86.tar.gz solaris 2.x [x86] v2.8002.447

Enjoy!

:: 28-Nov-1999 18:50 (Sunday) ::

Dan Oetting has developed an AltiVec RC5 core. Tester Joseph McLean, who
has a Sawtooth machine, reported:

“Well now, it’s working FINE and dandy on my G4/400. 4.5 Mkeys a second!
I scored 1.3 before! I’m sitting here watching a 2^32 block get cracked
right before my eyes…”

:: 28-Nov-1999 16:23 (Sunday) ::

Along with the work I’ve been doing to clean up the website, I’ve also
gone through the distributed.net third-party addons page and have
removed all of the stale links, and reorganized it in a more accessible
table layout. I’ve also added a bunch of new links to things that
many utilities that people may have not been aware were available. If
anyone is aware of any other great utilities that aren’t listed, I
encourage you to write to me so that I can add it!
http://www.distributed.net/addon.html

:: 27-Nov-1999 19:24 (Saturday) ::

Beta Two of the Mac OS dnetc has arrived. This version sports improved
yielding code (it runs faster in the background) and a Halt command in
the File menu.

http://nodezero.distributed.net/~vetere/dnetc-macos-beta.sit

That URL wil be kosher for all remaining betas.

:: 27-Nov-1999 03:10 (Saturday) ::

We’ve attracted quite a number of offers to assist in debugging the Sybase
problems. So many, in fact, that I haven’t had a chance to respond to
all of them. Two very talented guys have started going over the code
and Sybase configuration looking for oddities or suspicious configuration
items. So far, no serious red flags have turned up, but we have decided
on a good number of performance improvements that can be made.

I’ve spent the past 36 hours continuing to do all the normal repair and
check routines that I’m accustomed to doing. dropping and rebuilding indexes,
doing checktables and checkdbs. The “dbcc checktable” on the rc5_64_master
table took just over 12 hours to complete!

Given the serious slowdown brought about by having web access enabled, I’ve
unfortunately had to conduct most of these repairs and checks with stats
disabled. I know it’s been frustrating. As of tonight’s run (yes, csc stats
are current) I’m still unable to do anything, even bcp data into the server,
if the web server is enabled. This fact makes it impractical to be running
the rc5-64 logs as it would require even more downtime from the server.

Rest assured, we’re still prodding and tweaking, looking for the cause of the
problem. Thanks, as always, for your continued patience and support.

:: 27-Nov-1999 00:56 (Saturday) ::

A couple corrections regarding the Mac client:

Large, large amounts of that client were written by Michael Feiri, who
independently constructed it from our publicized source tarball. Also,
it does not after all contain the bitslicing G4 core. That’ll be out in
the very, very near future.

So thank Feiri for his work – he’s a major force behind this release.

:: 26-Nov-1999 23:18 (Friday) ::

http://nodezero.distributed.net/~vetere/dnetc-macos-b1.sit

From the readme:

This is build two of beta one of the distributed.net Mac OS client,
version 2.8. These documents were hasilty thrown together to accompany
the binary, hot off the compiler, because we recognize the need to get a
Mac client out there now.

The client is fully functional. It passes all tests. It has a bitslicing
CSC AltiVec core. It is not, as of yet, very nice, nor does it exhibit
optimal performance. We’re fixing these bugs. To start it, select ‘Run’
from the Commands menu.

distributed.net has notgiven up on GUI development for the Mac client.
This release has a CLI due to time constraints – we figured you all
would rather have a CLI that works than nothing at all.

Don’t even bother reporting bugs. We’ve got an internal formal beta team
madly scrambling to weed out and fix the bugs. You willget a GUI. Soon.
It will look good. I personally promise. Flood my mailbox if you don’t.

Everyone should thank Nate Begeman (nbegeman@umich.edu) for his hard,
fast work in optimizing the AltiVec core and spitting this beta out. All
praise should be sent to him, and all complaints to me.