:: 30-Mar-2000 22:45 (Thursday) ::

Hi all,

Just a short line or two to tell you we just released another public source
package. This time we included MacOS-specific code as well as Dan Oetting’s
Altivec RC5 core. Happy compiling! :)

http://www.distributed.net/source/

:: 03-Oct-1999 16:32 (Sunday) ::

Hi all,

As you may know, we have a glibc problem with x86 Linux clients. If
the client is statically linked with glibc 2.0, it can’t resolve
host names under glibc 2.1. And vice-versa.
Previously, we had ‘solved’ the problem by providing two clients, one
for glibc 2.0 and another for glibc 2.1. This is confusing for most
people.

I want you to beta-test another client. This v444 client was build
and linked against glibc 2.1.1 on a SuSE 6.2 system, but this time is
was dynamically linked. I think this should solve the problem, but I
need people to test this client to be sure.
I’m particularly interested in beta-testers on glibc *2.0*
systems. Tell me if it works on your machine or if it doesn’t, but
please include as much details as you can in either case.

Here’s the url :
http://nodezero.distributed.net/~remi/rc5des444-linux-x86-elf-mt-glibc2.tar.gz
and the GnuPG signature :
http://nodezero.distributed.net/~remi/rc5des444-linux-x86-elf-mt-glibc2.tar.gz.asc

Note to i386 & i486 users : You will see a slight drop in performance
because we can’t link the 386/486 self-modifying core in a dynamic
client. If you want the best performance, you should stick with the
443 client.
We will continue to include this 386/486 self-modifying core in future
a.out and libc5 clients.

:: 28-Mar-1999 03:59 (Sunday) ::

Thursday evening I lost control of my car when I was at ~150 Km/h
(>90mph) on a small road going though a forest. Fortunately I was
alone, in the car and on the road. Everything was done in a split
second. I probably lost conscience when the car hit the first tree.
When I waked up, I get out of the car through the window (I couldn’t
use the doors anymore). Then I stopped someone on the road and he
drived me to the hospital.
I really realized the importance of the crash when I saw my car at the
mechanic the next day. Everything was broken outside and inside the
car. Even my seat was broken ! There was blood everywhere.

I’ve seven stitches on the face, but beside looking a bit like
Frankenstein’s creature, everything is ok. I can’t believe I’m still
alive and (mostly) healthy…

Morale of the story : alcohol + speed = crash.

If you’re used to drive far beyond the speed limit while under
alcohol, sooner or later you will face the death. You might be (very)
lucky like I was. Or you might not.

:: 03-Feb-1999 22:07 (Wednesday) ::

Hi everyone !

I updated the public source code in http://www.distributed.net/cores/.
Here’s a short “what’s new” :
– Bruce magic MMX DES bitslicer ;
– a new Alpha DES core from Christoph Dworzak ;
– updates in most of the other cores ;
– egcs+alpha patch in logstuff.cpp ;
– some fixes in the ./configure script ;
– lots of portability fixes in the C++ code, borrowed from
the full v434 client source.

Alas I don’t have time right now to test this source on a Win32
machine. So if you have patches for this platform, send them and I
will upload a new set of sources.

:: 23-Dec-1998 12:04 (Wednesday) ::

I’m offline until Jan 4.

:: 21-Nov-1998 15:44 (Saturday) ::

The self-modifying core is, alas, incredibly slow on a K6 too :
57 kkeys/s instead of 340-350 kkeys/s on a K6/200 :-(

:: 20-Nov-1998 23:28 (Friday) ::

Hi all,

I updated the public source, so that it shouldn’t fail to compile at least.

There’s also a new 486 core. This one features self modifying code, and it’s
approx. 5% faster on my 486 DX4/100 under Linux. With other Intel
processors, this core seems dog slow, I wonder why… I will test this code
with a K6 and a K6-2, and I will post the result in this .plan file.

:: 17-Nov-1998 14:30 (Tuesday) ::

Updated public sources are available at http://www.distributed.net/cores
Here’s the list of fixes :
– Win32 now builds ok with MS VC++. You will need TASM or Cygwin to
compile the assembly cores, though.
– The client now prints the core used.
– Updated the configure script for POWER / Power-PC targets.
– Added BeOS support code from the official client. Note that the BeOS
x86 clients has been made with a customized GCC compiler, so you may
not be able to reproduce it. Meanwhile Be switched to EGCS and ELF, so
the various *.xcof files may not be very useful to you.
– MMX s-boxes has been converted to NASM format
– Various other fixes from the official 420+ client, look in the $Log
in each source file.

:: 11-Nov-1998 22:18 (Wednesday) ::

Oops, fixed the tree broken links …

:: 11-Nov-1998 20:39 (Wednesday) ::

The public code is finally public !
http://www.distributed.net/cores/