Running SETI @s the shell

devilsown

Junior Member
Feb 23, 2003
14
0
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is there a way to run SETI as the shell so that nothing else can be done on that computer except seti?
 

compudog

Diamond Member
Apr 25, 2001
5,782
0
71
Welcome devilsown!
I would also like the answer to this as I have a few motherboards sitting here, a few power supplies, and nothing for them to do. I'd love to add them to the fleet, but only have DOS and Linux to use as OS because I only have small HDD available (1.2GB, 420MB and 850MB)
 

ProviaFan

Lifer
Mar 17, 2001
14,993
1
0
A general overview:

If you have a minimal Debian installation, for example (something that can handle a small hard disk and amount of RAM fairly well), you can first optimize its RAM usage by disabling extra consoles (normally, IIRC, it has six that you can switch between with CTRL+ALT+Fx; you should only need about two or three for a single-purpose cruncher). Then shut down services you don't need (no sendmail, apache, ftp, telnet) and only leave running the bare essentials (ssh, and possibly samba if you need it for the administration of the SETI client) running. Then start SETI from your init scripts.
 
Aug 27, 2002
10,043
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I'll let you research it, but there are some linux distro's that work as 1.44 floppy only workstations for that purpose.
 

Spacehead

Lifer
Jun 2, 2002
13,067
9,858
136
I found this on a forum along time ago & kinda forgot about it.


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What about changing what the shell runs? Instead of having it point to
Explorer.exe, why not have it just point to Seti? I fidled around with
that and the time went from 6 hrs/WU down to 2 hr/WU. That seems like a
significant gain does it not?

Shane
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Oooops, forgot to add the info on the system, well here it is:

Athlon 1 GHz (200 bus)
Abit KT7 (got the fsb set to 112 x 9.5 for cpu)
512 MB SDRAM
8.4 GB Seagate Barracuda HD
32 MB ATI Radeon LE
OS Windows 98 (first ed.)

All that I did was go into the "system.ini" file in windows and change
the "Shell=Explorer.exe" to "Shell=C:\(put the location of whatever
program you want to run in here).exe"

You must specify where the program is, for example
C:\folder\seti\program.exe

Once you do that the only thing that will run on your machine is that
program, and nothing else. To reverse the process you must boot into dos
using the "F8" key while the system is booting and go into your windows
directory, then use the edit command.

neat trick, and is a lot of fun :)

regards,
Shane
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