staff blogs

distributed.net staff keep (relatively) up-to-date logs of their activities in .plan files. These were traditionally available via finger, but we've put them on the web for easier consumption.

2007-08-20

decio [20-Aug-2007 @ 16:37]

Filed under: clients @ 16:37 +00:00

:: 20-Aug-2007 16:37 GMT (Monday) ::

Dear friends,

A few hours ago, the beta Playstation 3 clients expired. We apologize for
not releasing an update earlier; we’re making up for it by including in
this new version optimized OGR cores for the SPE co-processors in the
PlayStation 3, achieving a rate of 35.5 Mnodes/s for each SPE, for a total
node rate (including the PPE core) of 230+ Mnodes/s. We also fixed a bug
which caused one of the crunchers to silently stop running until the
client is restarted, so expect to see improved keyrates for RC5-72 as
well.

We’d like to mention that during the past two weeks of beta testing the
PlayStation 3 has been climbing steadily in our statistics, and currently
stands as the 4th largest CPU architecture in RC5-72, as measured by daily
contribution

and 8th overall
.

The pre-release client is available for download from our web site at
. Once again, we have
set an expiration date of 2 weeks for this beta, after which we plan to
ship an official version if all goes well.

We thank you for your continuing support. Moo! ]:8)

2007-08-07

chipper [07-Aug-2007 @ 22:19]

Filed under: Uncategorized @ 22:19 +00:00

:: 07-Aug-2007 22:19 GMT (Tuesday) ::

lists.0.net will be down for maintenance starting at 6:30PM EDT
and returning to service before midnight EDT.

-Chip

decio [07-Aug-2007 @ 08:54]

Filed under: clients @ 08:54 +00:00

:: 07-Aug-2007 08:54 GMT (Tuesday) ::

Dear friends,

The PlayStation 3 is here. Perhaps you know somebody running Folding@Home
on theirs? We couldn’t sit idle. Our crack team of programmers has ported
dnetc to the PlayStation 3 platform, complete with optimized RC5-72
assembly code for record-breaking speed.

We really mean it: we have measured the PlayStation 3 processing RC5-72
work units at close to 170 Mkeys/sec, easily making this the fastest
hardware platform our client has been ported to. This is more than 22
times faster than a computer with a Pentium 4 processor running at the
same clock speed as the PS3’s Cell processor. Although OGR is enabled on
this build, work on optimized OGR cores is in progress; expect a
suboptimal rate of about 17 Mnodes/sec if you choose to run OGR.

You are welcome to download this pre-release client from our web site at
http://www.distributed.net/download/prerelease.php. Please note that this
client expires in 2 weeks, when we plan to release a new version including
optimized OGR cores.

We thank you for your continuing support. Moo! ]:8)

2007-08-06

bovine [06-Aug-2007 @ 18:39]

Filed under: keyservers @ 18:39 +00:00

:: 06-Aug-2007 18:39 GMT (Monday) ::

Network service to our keymaster has been restored and the backlog is
being processed right now. Thanks for your patience.

bovine [06-Aug-2007 @ 06:06]

Filed under: keyservers @ 06:06 +00:00

:: 06-Aug-2007 06:06 GMT (Monday) ::

We are currently experiencing some network communication issues
between our keymaster and our keyservers. We expect the issue will be
resolved sometime today. All results that have already been
transmitted have been stored until the connectivity issues are
resolved. There will be at least a one or two day delay in stats
reflecting the latest results. Thanks for your patience!