ARM client && web client.

Moderators: Site Moderators, FAHC Science Team

Post Reply
mnini
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2020 2:18 am

ARM client && web client.

Post by mnini »

Not just android, there should be a client, that works on ARM linux or compilation manual.

Urging people with phones counting overnight so they wake up and phone is not hot is important, but IMO every science consumer, atleast most of them in western world can afford RaspeberryPi like device to contribute to the network and we can talk to them with language they understand, the cure.

For $4000 people can afford 996 cores clusters, which are small and actually power effective.
I know it sounds like evil marketing, but...

Also custom-made alexa's and other voice assistant's are ARM devices.

But what I wanted to say is that ARM is important platform too. In benchmarks it goes like i3-4200U on numbers, the ARM avialable for $40.

Custom made home smart TV's also use ARM, even NAS can count...

I know it are little pieces, but it can make more than 10% of a network.

Also you do webclient, maybe people will accept to count along with accepting cookie, now that they feel endangered.
bruce
Posts: 20910
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:13 pm
Location: So. Cal.

Re: ARM client && web client.

Post by bruce »

FAH is not able to support an ARM client.
JimboPalmer
Posts: 2573
Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2009 4:12 am
Location: Greenwood MS USA

Re: ARM client && web client.

Post by JimboPalmer »

I am going to amplify a little on bruce's comment.

The Nvidia Cleint was funded by Nvidia, as was the then ATI client funded by ATI

Sony funded the design of the PS3 and android client.

F@H has gotten Intel funding.

Google funded a chrome specific version of F@H

Arm, however, is relatively small firm without a lot of funds to use by advertising a specialty science project. All you really need is someone with deep pockets who want to spend money on Folding@Home. Very few biochemists are billionaires.

https://foldingathome.org/about/partners/
Tsar of all the Rushers
I tried to remain childlike, all I achieved was childish.
A friend to those who want no friends
bruce
Posts: 20910
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:13 pm
Location: So. Cal.

Re: ARM client && web client.

Post by bruce »

Folding on any battery powered device is pretty close to impossible. FAH requires a great deal of power to run Floating Point instructions continuously. There was what I'll call a beta test of an ARM client written by Sony. It only worked on Sony phones and it only ran if the battery was fully charged and the charger was connected to keep it charged. Neither of those facts were pleasing to those who tested the ARM client and it was abandoned.

In general ARM wasn't strong with Floats, either.
JimboPalmer
Posts: 2573
Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2009 4:12 am
Location: Greenwood MS USA

Re: ARM client && web client.

Post by JimboPalmer »

Sony's client assumed that all CPU resources were available all the time. Just after it was written the concept of big:LITTLE was embraced by the ARM design community, in which CPUs are turn on and off on the fly as power demands dictate. So newer hardware could not use the written software.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_big.LITTLE

This is a similar problem to laptops with both Intel IGP graphics and a AMD/Nivida discrete graphic 'card' that is started when there is a large graphics load. The F@H software cannot depend on having the supported GPU all the time.

https://www.geforce.com/hardware/techno ... technology

The Sony code is open sourced and you are free to start from their design and modify it to cope with the big:LITTLE paradigm, but Sony themselves abandoned that idea. If you read the Wikipedia article you will realize there are 3 different big:LITTLE architectures.
Tsar of all the Rushers
I tried to remain childlike, all I achieved was childish.
A friend to those who want no friends
lwatts
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2020 10:22 pm

Re: ARM client && web client.

Post by lwatts »

Hello,

My company, Neocortix, has a worldwide network with thousands of high-performance Android devices running Debian Linux in secure containers. (neocortix dot com) We have some idle capacity which could be used for Folding@Home, and we would like very much to contribute it to the COVID-19 projects.

We would not require a custom Android application. We would just need an ARM64 build of the Debian client.

We would be willing to do the work of compiling the Debian Client for ARM64 - our team has the expertise to do this, and we would be willing to donate their time to this cause. As an example, we have recently built an ARM64 version of TensorFlow and gotten it running in a few days. We understand that other commercial teams have worked on that for months and not been able to do it at all. We would just need the sources to be able to do the build. Of course, we would sign your NDA and promise not to make any functional modifications.

Could we talk to someone about this? We'd really like to help, and we have the resources, expertise, and executive commitment to do it.

Sincerely,
Lloyd Watts
CEO, Neocortix, Inc.
rexstjohn
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:00 pm

Re: ARM client && web client.

Post by rexstjohn »

Hello,

I work on a lot of Arm stuff. Sending you a ping Lloyd. We have the greatest collection of arm super devs in a discord we organize. Shall we?
svadlamani
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2020 4:28 pm

Re: ARM client && web client.

Post by svadlamani »

Please contact me about porting to Arm. We have resources that may help.
Note that Graviton and Graviton 2 arm based chips at AWS are available for significantly reduced cost to the compliment x86s.
dvickers
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2020 7:55 pm

Re: ARM client && web client.

Post by dvickers »

Any chance that this will be developed for Raspberry Pi4?
Post Reply