LHC@home

I hope that when LHC goes back on-line, they have a Mac client available.
This is the ONLY BOINC project that does not allow Macintosh platform participation.

Just wanted to add that I have been a participant of this project since 18th Sep 2004 and have never been able to participate.

Sorry "fillmeup", but in order to get identical results on all client platforms, we've found it necessary to use a particular Fortran compiler (Lahey), which isn't available for MacOSX. This is a showstopper for people like you (and me) who run on Macs.

Ben Segal / LHC@home

I don't understand why the result are compiler-dependant.
Is the Fortran language not standardized ?

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All other BOINC projects have Mac clients... this means LHC@Home is more complicated than the other projects to depend on that compiler limitation?

Mac client asap!

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Sorry "fillmeup", but in order to get identical results on all client platforms, we've found it necessary to use a particular Fortran compiler (Lahey), which isn't available for MacOSX. This is a showstopper for people like you (and me) who run on Macs.

Ben Segal / LHC@home

Hi Ben !

Does it means that the Macintosh version will never exist ?

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Bump?

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Dublin, California
Team: SETI.USA

It is also posible to let LHC running with Crossover. If anyone is interested, I can write a little howto.

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Interesting request, but don't expect an answer until new admins have finished setting up the new server and all that.

Considering 2 years have passed since original question, *maybe* that Fortran compiler is now ported to Mac OS X too.

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The issue probably isn't so much fortran being nonstandardized but different compilers doing different things while optimizing the code. Even with a compiler port it will probably only be possible to make a client for mac/x86, since the older PPC based macs use completely different architectures the compiler is almost certain not to produce code with identical results.

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All I will say is I'm a Mac user and I will be pushing for some work in this area at some stage with hopefully a PPC and Universal version but I actually do believe that the compiler is the main probelm. Architecture is compensated within the code as far as I know.

I would be interested.

It is also posible to let LHC running with Crossover. If anyone is interested, I can write a little howto.

I would be interested.

It is also posible to let LHC running with Crossover. If anyone is interested, I can write a little howto.

I have it working with Crossover, too. There are some problems with older BOINC client with the CPU counting - but not shure, if this is fixed with the newer one.
But, the perfomance is OK. A lot of better as with Parallels, and less memory overhead. - But also tested with old Parallels 2.x.

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I also would be interested. My MacBook Pro has crunched in the last month as much as all my WinTel Systems have in a year or more!

Hello,
I would also use the Mac (with Intel proc) client if it would exist.

I didn't even know that it doesn't exist. There were not many WUs since I have access to a Mac, and today I accidentally saw the "there was work for other platforms" message.

Well, that's one thing, but somehow BOINC thinks it's just a temporary issue, and keeps requesting work each minute. And there comes the response "not sending work - last request too recent: 75 sec".

So, beside that there's no client for Mac, the BOINC core is not informed quite well to stop requesting (or at least do a request each hour only).

(BTW, there are BOINC projects that don't have a Mac client. Spinhenge is an example.)

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I would be interested.

It is also posible to let LHC running with Crossover. If anyone is interested, I can write a little howto.

I have it working with Crossover, too. There are some problems with older BOINC client with the CPU counting - but not shure, if this is fixed with the newer one.
But, the perfomance is OK. A lot of better as with Parallels, and less memory overhead. - But also tested with old Parallels 2.x.

I've written a Howto for installing and configuring the Windows BOINC client with LHC@home on Intel based Macs. It's available at www.dotsch.de/boinc under the BOINC Howtos section.

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I would be interested.

It is also posible to let LHC running with Crossover. If anyone is interested, I can write a little howto.

I have it working with Crossover, too. There are some problems with older BOINC client with the CPU counting - but not shure, if this is fixed with the newer one.
But, the perfomance is OK. A lot of better as with Parallels, and less memory overhead. - But also tested with old Parallels 2.x.

I've written a Howto for installing and configuring the Windows BOINC client with LHC@home on Intel based Macs. It's available at www.dotsch.de/boinc under the BOINC Howtos section.

There is a perfectly good BOINC client available for the Mac (I'm running one right now). The problem would be the LHC client, which is compiled with the Lahey Fortran compiler. Lahey uses the Fujitsu compiler and is available for Windows and Linux, but alas not for Mac.

I've got over 17 years experience with the Lahey compiler(s). I'd be willing to port the code to run using the GNU gfortran compiler or g95 compiler, both of which are available on the Mac. I'd even invest in the Intel Fortran compiler, since that might be slightly faster.

Jondr
Emeritus Operations Research Analyst, U.S. Geological Survey
richadsjd at acm.org

pffff here a macbook pro intelcore2duo up for running.

you know that gcc compile also fortran
http://hpc.sourceforge.net/
i guess that's not useful but you will see

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pffff here a macbook pro intelcore2duo up for running.

you know that gcc compile also fortran
http://hpc.sourceforge.net/
i guess that's not useful but you will see

The problem is, that diffrent compilers generate different results. But, if the project need 100% identical results from a WU it could be really problematic. That is the problem at LHC and some other Fortran based BOINC projects. The compiler which has LHC used is only available for Windows and Linux...

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Here's another dual core Intel Mac which would participate, if a Mac client were to be made. No news after Jondr's kind offer? (I'm aware of Crossover but not too tempted to go this route at this time, although Dotsch's howto would make it mostly painless.)

If you have some questions or problems at the setup or have other questions, feel free to contact me.
The CrossOver solution has the benefit, that you could let the native MacOS BOINC client and the science applications running side by side on the CrossOver Windows BOINC setup. With the CPU throtteling, it is posible to get the CrossOver a smaller CPU usage, that the MacOS BOINC client. - I start the CrossOver enviroment for example only, if LHC has some work...

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I'm running the lhc cliient on my macbook pro intel 2.2GHz D. How? By using an emulated windows 2000 system under parallels. I have 4 GB of RAM and a 320 GB hard drive. I needed the emulated windows client to run SYSTRAN sp I didn't do it JUST for LHC but as long as I had it ... No work units yet however.