BOINC on Raspberry Pi

This page is going to be dedicated to cataloguing my efforts on using BOINC on a Raspberry pi, and also used to compile information on getting it to work on certain projects. For those of you unfamiliar with the Raspberry pi it is a mini computer basically the size of a credit card, that's sold for around 35 dollars. That being said this is not something you simply pay 35 dollars for, and suddenly you have a computer, unless of course you happen to have some spare cables, a (somewhat unique) power supply, and a spare SD card laying around. All in all putting together my order, which also included a few things that were not absolutely essential, I spent about 90 dollars after you factor in shipping.

Oddly the issue from doing my reading does not seem to be getting the BOINC manager to install on the device, but rather finding projects that support the ARM architecture, and the other limitations on the board. So as I do not have the device in hand, the first part of this page is going to be dedicated to Projects I have found that should require far less fuss than most.

Supported projects 

Quake Catchers network - While I likely won't be testing this, as I do not live anywhere close to an area known for earthquakes, or at least any more than very very very minor ones, which can be confused for a pick-up truck in the street.  But the linked to sight is their own home page specifically advertising its ability to work with the Raspberry pi.

Radioactive @ Home - Has also announced it offers support for the Boinc Raspberry Pi.  Though sadly it is like Quake Catchers network as it also requires an additional piece of hardware for it to be able to grant credits.

Asteroids@ home   - recently announced support for raspberry pi.


I am giving up hope on this project

I am in a little bit of a predicament, if I am to crunch boinc projects on the raspberry pi, I need to purchase one of the new model B boards with the 512MB memory.  While I have made progress in getting several projects to recognize my raspberry pi, the one recurring issue is the amount of memory that my pi has.

As asteroids which is the latest promising one needs 244MB of memory, when running even just in terminal mode I can not free up more than 190MB of memory, without worrying about really cutting essential tasks.   So I need to reconsider my project.  Not to mention it appears those late to the party actually benefited.

17 comments:

  1. Keith SloanNovember 12, 2012 at 3:01 PM

    Have you tried Einstein@home on the Raspberry Pi. The source is available here http://albert.phys.uwm.edu/license.php. I don't have a Pi, but would invest in one if I could set it to Crunch something useful. Otherwise I don't really have a use for one.

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    Replies
    1. UnknownNovember 12, 2012 at 3:16 PM

      Keith, That might be a project for me tonight, after my night class. Though I am making no promises that I will get to it before the weekend. I will let you know.

      Adam.

      Delete
  2. UnknownNovember 20, 2012 at 4:27 AM

    Please see my experiences thus far: http://burdeview.blogspot.com.au/

    SETI@Home is fried at the moment due to service problems. I can confirm it did actually start crunching though.

    I tried using the SIMONA framework for POEM@home. Had lots of unreferenced vtable errors that I believe are to do with the arm version of the c compiler as I managed to get it crunching standalone when compiled on x86 Linux. Have to set aside some time to try and fix this.

    Going to try and get Einstein@Home going tonight.

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  3. UnknownNovember 23, 2012 at 2:55 AM

    Just an update. I've managed to get SETI 6.12 and BOINC 6.12.34 cleanly compiled and running on Raspbian. Work unit is currently 20% of the way through. This is a lot further than it got before. See below:

    http://burdeview.blogspot.com.au/p/raspberry-pi-boinc-project-ive-created.html

    I've linked a tarball on my post for you to download so you can skip the compilation part. You will still need to install BOINC, run, and attach anonymous project.

    Lets hope this work unit gets all the way through and validated!

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  4. UnknownNovember 23, 2012 at 9:16 AM

    Thank you Daniel for keeping me updated, I have been quite busy lately so I have been unable to test it out. but I look forward to trying it soon.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownNovember 30, 2012 at 9:21 PM

    Here's an update for you.

    MikyWay@Home - Confirmed working and validating.

    SETI@Home - Still waiting! Hopefully my task will get re-shipped for validation soon.

    theSkyNet POGS - Confirmed working on dedicated test platform. Project lead will release anonymous platform support to production after checking results after weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownDecember 1, 2012 at 1:19 PM

    To those of you looking for something to do for their raspberry pis: Enigma@home (http://www.enigmaathome.net/) works on raspbian - out of the box (!), with boinc installed from repositories (!). No need to compile anything yourself, just install and add the project! My pi managed 15 workunits worth about 1000 credits in about three weeks of 24/7 crunching.

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  7. UnknownDecember 6, 2012 at 8:54 AM

    Confirming SETI@Home has returned as validated.

    Regarding Eniga@Home, that is great news!

    ReplyDelete
  8. PSLJanuary 11, 2013 at 5:27 PM

    Project Asteroids@Home added support for RPI.

    http://asteroidsathome.net/boinc/

    I got first task and it looks like my RPI will need about 20 days (about 500 hours) to finish the job...

    ReplyDelete
  9. PSLJanuary 14, 2013 at 4:59 AM

    Small update to RPI & Asteroids@Home.

    First, my RPI has 512MB RAM and is overclocked to 900MHz. I tried to overclock to 950MHz in the past but filesystem at SD card was corrupted. 900MHz runs OK; I have a small aluminium heatsink at CPU.

    My first task from Asteroids@Home was finished and validated. Boinc client reported that about 500 hours will be needed finish the job at RPI but work was done in less that 60 hours (2.5 days). My desktop PC needs about 4 hours to finish this kind of job...

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  10. UnknownJanuary 17, 2013 at 6:39 AM

    I've been pumping out theSkyNet POGS credits on my Raspberry PIs for over a month now. Here's just one of my hosts. I'm happy so far.

    http://ec2-23-23-126-96.compute-1.amazonaws.com/pogs/show_host_detail.php?hostid=3089

    Here's my post on how to get it rolling using anonymous platform:

    http://ec2-23-23-126-96.compute-1.amazonaws.com/pogs/forum_thread.php?id=156

    For those that want to skip straight to the needed project files:

    https://github.com/dcarrion87/boinc-rpi/tree/master/project_pogs/bins

    ReplyDelete
  11. UnknownJanuary 17, 2013 at 6:51 AM

    Here's some better crunching statistics for my two main Pis that have been crunching theSkyNet POGS for over a month:

    Host 1

    Host 2

    You can see them slowly creeping up. ;)

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  12. UnknownJanuary 17, 2013 at 10:18 PM

    Eeerr, sorry about the post abuse. I've updated the instructions over on my blog to preference BOINC 7.0.27, available via Raspbian repos. I provide instruction on loading up using anonymous platform set-up for POGS, SETI, Milkyway and Einstein. Only a few steps required:

    BURDEVIEW - Raspberry Pi BOINC Project

    ReplyDelete
  13. UnknownJanuary 20, 2013 at 11:49 PM

    OProject@Home ALX and WUProp@Home now available on Raspberry Pi. Project files with instructions over on my project page.

    These are NCI (Non CPU intensive) class applications. That is, they'll run alongside your SETIs and Milkyways.

    ReplyDelete
  14. UnknownFebruary 2, 2013 at 11:53 PM

    Not sure if you've seen it yet, but the programmers at Albert@Home have made a Raspberry Pi compatible version available natively http://albert.phys.uwm.edu/. It's apparently working on the 256MB Raspberry Pi.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Ray_GTI-RFebruary 19, 2013 at 8:50 PM

    Thanks to Daniel (above) I've had 27k credits via running various BOINC projects since the 3rd week of January 2013 namely, OProject, WUProp, Milkyway & Albert under Raspbian.

    Which is nice for a 256MB RPi.

    ReplyDelete
  16. UnknownFebruary 23, 2013 at 7:01 PM

    SubsetSum@Home now available over on my Raspberry Pi BOINC page

    Here's a successful run: http://volunteer.cs.und.edu/subset_sum/result.php?resultid=1345268

    ReplyDelete

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