Is there a way to choose the domain we want to contribute to?

[serval2412]

Hello,

Since folding reinstall to have an updated version (on pc x86-64 Linux-Debian), I'm not on an Alzheimer project anymore.
I removed several times /var/lib/fahclient/work/00 or /var/lib/fahclient/work/01 to force the change of project but it'll stick to 16996 whereas I put "Alzheimer" in "I support research fighting".
Is there a way to change this?

(I didn't test fahcontrol since it doesn't install on my machine because it requires Python2 with gtk2, completely deprecated).

[Joe_H]

Welcome to the folding support forum.

The setting for disease preference is just that, a preference. If there are no WUs available from the servers for projects related to the disease set, then a WU from another project will be assigned. From going through the list of active projects recently, I only saw one project as being Alzheimer's related.

As for FAHControl requiring Python 2 there is another choice besides installing the legacy Python 2.7 support. The source for FAHControl is open source, a rewrite to use Python 3 was created and is available here - https://github.com/cdberkstresser/fah-control.

Another option is to install FAHControl on Windows or macOS and set it up to connect over a local net with your Linux system.

[serval2412]

Thank you for the feedback.

Yes there's only 1 project for Alzheimer (there were 3 some time ago) but I'd be astonished this last one just stopped when I upgraded folding program.

About Fahcontrol, I git cloned it, read the README, installed the dependencies but got this error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/julien/projects/fah-control/./FAHControl", line 25, in <module>
from fah import FAHControl, load_fahcontrol_db
File "/home/julien/projects/fah-control/fah/__init__.py", line 33, in <module>
from .FAHControl import *
File "/home/julien/projects/fah-control/fah/FAHControl.py", line 25, in <module>
from fah.Version import version
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'fah.Version'

Taking a look at https://github.com/cdberkstresser/fah-control, it seems it's quite abandoned.

Sorry there's not enough money and/or people to work on porting to gtk3. gtk2 is obsolete and gtk4 began to arrive.

[Joe_H]

Project 18601 may be the only Alzheimer's project active, and it is still active. However that does not mean that there will always be WUs available when a specific system connects to the servers requesting a WU. The WUs could all be out, and due to the parallel/serial nature new WUs only become available after one is returned. Each trajectory of Run and Clone starts with a Gen 0 WU, only after that is returned can Gen 1 be created from the results. This continues until the maximum Gen set by the researcher is reached.

As best as I can tell, the Python 3 version of FAHControl is not abandoned. It is just not very active with the occasional fix applied. It doesn't have to change other than to meet changing Linux libraries as the original FAHControl is frozen as is the V7 FAHClient. Some workarounds are mentioned in the open and closed issues.

Work on a V8 folding client was resumed about a year ago, it had been started before COVID and suspended so the developer could work on server and other issues during full COVID response. They did hire a second developer last year, that person left a couple months ago and has recently been replaced. I am not certain how they are funding the developers, getting grant money for that type of hire is difficult from some of the usual research grant sources.

[serval2412]

Concerning Alzheimer projects, I didn't know 18601, I only knew 18206, 18210 and 18212. Since several weeks, I had only from 18210 (https://folding.lar.systems/projects/fo ... file/18210).
BTW, it could be great to have some basic stats like what's been done, what remains to do, but that's another story.

Anyway, I gave a new try (delete the content of work) and it still downloads a WU for 16996.
Is there a way to see if there are still WU for a project even if, as I already said, I'm quite sure there are still for 18210 ? Unless it's a server pb from ?

Concerning Linux libs, I know it evolves regularly but gtk3 has been there since about 10 years, 3.24 (so a quite stable version) has been released in 2016.

About V8 folding, I didn't know about this, hope it'll arrive soon! Is there any link to follow the progress? I mean, I don't see a V8 version in https://github.com/orgs/FoldingAtHome/r ... s?type=all (or perhaps missed it?)

[Joe_H]

Currently none of the projects in the 18200 range are active, see the summary of active projects - https://apps.foldingathome.org/psummary. They were being run from servers located at Washington University St Lous (WUSTL), I am not certain of the status of the servers there.

Dr Greg Bowman who is the director of F@h and the director of the WUSTL lab that was running the projects just moved to a new position at University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) so the servers may be in the process of being relocated. Looking at the server stats page - https://apps.foldingathome.org/serverstats - most of the WUSTL servers are listed as online, but I don't see any of them actively assigning WUs. They may be online for remote access to do data analysis of work already done. There may be more work left to be completed, but may be waiting on server relocation.

The V8 client is to be open source, the repositories for it on https://github.com/FoldingAtHome have "-bastet" as a suffix to their names. I don't have any timeline yet on when it will be released for beta testing, but guess that will be sometime in the next 12 months. I do know the developer hired last year needed some time to become familiar with the code, but some progress was made. The person just hired has done work for F@h in the past on CPU core development, hopefully that will help in getting familiarized with the client code.

[serval2412]

I just git cloned the new version (cbang, fah-client-bastet and fah-web-client-bastet), the interface is great! The possibility to delete a WU is there!
Great job!

Thank you a lot for your patience and all these info!

[Jonazz]

I just git cloned the new version (cbang, fah-client-bastet and fah-web-client-bastet), the interface is great! The possibility to delete a WU is there!
Great job!

Thank you a lot for your patience and all these info!

Why would you want to delete a WU?

[serval2412]

Why would you want to delete a WU?

Because I want to choose on which domain I use my computer since it's time and money (+ fan noise). So if a WU doesn't correspond to what I expected, I want to be able to remove it. Of course, when I say "remove", I just mean delete the task to process it on my computer, since the WU will obviously be processed by a computer from someone else.

[toTOW]

It's called cherry pinking, it hurts the project and it is forbidden. Don't forget that WUs are removed from distribution if too many errors are reported, so if every one would be doing cherry picking, some WU might be marked as bad although they are perfectly fine.

As it has been said multiple times, the cause selection only indicates a preferences, and if some work is not available for this cause, it will send anything the need to be folded at this time.

[serval2412]

Ok I understand so perhaps it could be interesting to have the feature consisting to indicate we want this and only this, not just a preference.
For the moment, I stopped the crunching, I'll check on https://apps.foldingathome.org/psummary if the projects I want to contribute reappear.