Poll: Stand-alone client for your OS? Yes/no/unsure

[calxalot]

You can double click launch anything with an execute bit on osx. If its a shell script or command line tool, it gets run from a Terminal window. The full path to the exe is used, and the cwd is set to the user home. You can also launch things with special extensions, like ".command",

[v00d00]

Wasnt sure whether you had to chmod it execustable first on OSX. My knowledge of the BSD variants isnt brilliant, but i kind of exepcetd general security to be arranged in a similar manner to Linux, ie you make your binaries executable before you execute them, to stop rogue code running prior to examination.

Its sounds a lot like what we have on Lin.

[calxalot]

If the tarball has binaries with the execute bit deliberately unset, then they would not be double clickable.
Direct download of a binary file also usually results in no execute bit.
Distributing the client and wrapper non-executable sounds like a good idea.

Edit: Finder/Launch Services will try to open a file that is double clicked in something reasonable. If it used to be executable, Terminal will open a window but not run it. A newly created (in vi) non-exe script file was opened in Xcode for me.

[PinHead]

Hopefully there will always be a console version.

This reduces O.S. dependancies, patches, driver updates, Service Packs, etc from suddenly preventing the client from running.

And as Wilford Brimley says, It's the right thing to do.

[7im]

Experts capable of running a console only client are also quite capable of dealing with such things.

PG has limited resources. We don't want them wasting a lot of time to make or support separate clients for a very small number of old-school die-hards.

[k1wi]

It seems like debates of GUIs vs CLIs (vs GUI but using it as a CLI) is endless, this whole conversation reminds me of the recent story:

http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/75498.html.

I'm not sure how providing a console client (i.e. doesn't require GUI configuration) is any harder than the old days when you had the systray and console...? They both cater for two very separate groups and if anything hopefully should be quite easy to spin out a stand alone client...

And I'm not too sure that running around calling people old-school die-hards, simply because they would prefer a headless option, is particularly fair, wink or not. I mean at the end of the day, once v6 no longer provides what PG wants [at the moment the message appears to be if you don't want to use v7 use v6, but don't use v6 as v7 is needed for our new projects] all those individuals may well decide that those machines will simply no longer fold.

[7im]

I'm not sure how providing a console client (i.e. doesn't require GUI configuration) is any harder than the old days when you had the systray and console...? They both cater for two very separate groups and if anything hopefully should be quite easy to spin out a stand alone client...

"It's no harder than before?" "We'll do twice as much work now, because it was okay to work twice as hard before." Answer twice as many forum questions? Twice as many downloads to confuse people about which one to install? Is that really the standard we want to follow?

Or do we want to move forward and learn from the past? Work smarter, not harder? Let the DOS window stay in the previous century, and get on board with a better client and smarter software.

The current clients already run headless, or command line, or service mode, or whatever you want to call those modes. VooDoo just didn't know that, and accidently kicked of this whole wasteful debate of a thread. Most people still don't know it. So now we have to pretend to clammer for something we already have. We're better than that.

[uncle_fungus]

wasteful debate

This is of course your opinion

[Jesse_V]

I'm not sure how providing a console client (i.e. doesn't require GUI configuration) is any harder than the old days when you had the systray and console...? They both cater for two very separate groups and if anything hopefully should be quite easy to spin out a stand alone client...

"It's no harder than before?" "We'll do twice as much work now, because it was okay to work twice as hard before." Answer twice as many forum questions? Twice as many downloads to confuse people about which one to install? Is that really the standard we want to follow?

Or do we want to move forward and learn from the past? Work smarter, not harder? Let the DOS window stay in the previous century, and get on board with a better client and smarter software.

The current clients already run headless, or command line, or service mode, or whatever you want to call those modes. VooDoo just didn't know that, and accidently kicked of this whole wasteful debate of a thread. Most people still don't know it. So now we have to pretend to clammer for something we already have. We're better than that.

That's an interesting position. I doubt very much that we'll answer twice as many forum questions, because it seems illogical to me that the main page would offer a stand-alone client side-by-side the current V7 client, when the stand-alone client would be "for experts only" as you said earlier. Following the website's organization overhaul several months ago, it makes sense to me to squirrel any stand-alone away on a separate page or something, in such a way that experts could find it, but newcomers wouldn't accidentally discover them. Let's not offer it side-by-side the main program, as we've done with all the other clients in the past. Rather, presenting it separately and in an organized fashion would be the higher and smarter standard IMO.

[toTOW]

I might upgrade to v7 if client only packages were available (just the client executable, a sample config.xml and the required DLLs).

[7im]

If? Try when! Try now!!!

Tarballs already posted.

See Bruce's post here

[Aardvark]

I must agree with 7im on this one. I very recently shifted from the v6 OSX Console to the v7 beta OSX Client package install that is currently available. I am running on a Mac Mini under Snow Leopard. Quite frankly, I am surprised at just how smoothly it is operating. It transitions between WUs quite cleanly. The FAHControl app is a bit of a learning curve but I was impressed at just how much Information is now available through FAHControl. I still feel that it is probably unecessary overhead for the "purist" Folder but it can be turned off completely when your monitoring/config is over and you can be running as bare as you choose. It is time to start boarding the v7 Train, I feel. There would seem to really be no reason to wait for the console only to become a reality. When and if it arrives you will be able to go there.

[v00d00]

7im you will not answer twice as many questions., Nor waste any more time.

This client wont be easily findable by people who have no need of its features. Those that just come and fold will always end up using the package thats easily available on the stanford site. The other client will be somewhere else, and probably linked from a Sticky on this forum somewhere. Or at a push an unlinked page off the subdomain like folding.stanford.edu/standalone , somewhere we know to go get it from, but those that dont will never find unless they start asking questions. Most people will never ask.

Now until the other thread i wasnt aware you could pass arguments to the v7 client directly, like username and team. So now knowing that i can just create launch scripts for my machines that dont have guis on them.

Which leads me to Aardvarks post. FAH Control might be all and good, but how do you make it work on a server with no X running on it? The answer is you dont, without installing loads of stuff, setting up x forwarding, and generally wasting hours of time that could be used folding if their was a client that could be downloaded and configured from commandline. Thats why we want it. I only have one computer with a monitor attached to it. Everything else is ssh only, without x, and im used to being able to do a -configonly, then just having a script run the program forever more. Hell on some systems its nicer just to clone the client.cfg, and if you were deploiying to 1000 networked computers, this is the only way to go. You arent going to go to each computer and install the client, configure it, etc, not unless you are dumb. You would create one install and clone it to the other 999 computers. And thats where the console only, standalone client comes in. Because regardless of OS, their is no need for any major registry edits (on windows), and all files needed/generated/downloaded are contained with the cwd, and not spread all over the system.

[Aardvark]

@v00d00--I should have been a little clearer about defining the environment that I was operating in, and that is on a single user, dedicated to FAH, Mac. Perhaps I was being a bit over enthusiastic. There are a lot of "realities" that affect the choice to move to OSX v7 beta at this time.

[bruce]

...There would seem to really be no reason to wait for the console only to become a reality. When and if it arrives you will be able to go there.

Did you read the topic linked by 7im? The console-client has always been a reality but it was unfortunately packaged in an installer with other stuff. Now there is a bare-bones tar.bz2 download. I contend that nothing else is needed (except maybe an official link from some relatively obscure place on *.stanford.edu.)