Any work being done on getting the Rosetta/Ralph applications to work natively on the new Intel Macs? The current apps have to be run under Apple's PowerPC emulation deal, and it's about half as fast as if it were to be running native.

Not that there are that many out there, but I have one, and I want to use it to it's fullest potential :)

While your point is well taken, I am sure you know that Macs only represent a small portion of the machines running on any of the BOINC projects

Cause "small" is a psycologic word subject to individual interpretations.

I take a Host Operating System breakdown at boincstats ... see -:)

4 Microsoft Windows 2003 24,225 344,816,873.01 2,706,194.59 14,233.93 111.71
5 Darwin 33,831 187,262,284.26 1,687,357.77 5,535.23 49.88
6 Microsoft Windows 98 15,664 52,802,782.22 393,757.85 3,370.96 25.14

Darwin -> the OS of the macs , is the 5th into boinc world o/s rank

Ofcourse 187,262,284.26 credits , is a small number, on your interpretation.

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Click signature for global team stats

While it maybe a smaller percentage, BOinc is already set up for it.

They have just released new guidlines for compiling for the intel macs and is now the fifth official platform for boinc.

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/mac_build.html

Building BOINC Clients and Applications on Macintosh OSX

Written by Charlie Fenton
Last updated 2/22/06

This document applies to BOINC version 5.3.19 and later. It has instructions for building BOINC for Macintosh OSX, plus information for building science project applications to run under BOINC on Macintosh OSX.

Contents:

• Important requirements for building BOINC software for the Mac.

• Building BOINC libraries to link with project applications.

• Building BOINC Manager, BOINC Client and BOINC libraries.

• Building BOINC Manager Installer.

• Building project applications / upgrading applications for Macs with Intel processors.

.....

Building project applications

Upgrading applications for Macs with Intel processors

Apple began shipping Macs with Intel processors on January 10, and Apple expects to convert all its lines of computers to Intel by the end of 2006.

All future releases of BOINC will include "universal binary" builds for the Macintosh of BOINC Manager, command-line BOINC client and the boinc_cmd command-line tool. (Universal binaries contain both PowerPC and Intel executables in one file; the Macintosh OS automatically selects the appropriate one for that computer.)

The advantage of "universal binaries" is that you only need to have one copy of the application, and it will run on either PowerPC or Intel Macs, so users don't need to choose between two options. Since BOINC participants manually download BOINC from the web site, we will be providing BOINC in "universal binary" form.

However, participants do not manually download project applications; this is done automatically by BOINC. So there would be no advantage to combining the Intel and PowerPC versions in a single "universal binary" file, but doing so would double the size of the download.

So BOINC treats Intel Macs as a new, separate platform. BOINC previously directly supported four platforms: PowerPC Macs (powerpc-apple-darwin), Intel Linux (i686-pc-linux-gnu), Windows (windows-intelx86) and Solaris (sparc-sun-solaris2.7).

We have now added a fifth platform for Intel Macs (i686-apple-darwin).

As a temporary measure, projects can set their servers to deliver a copy of their current PowerPC application (renamed for the new platform) under the new i686-apple-darwin platform. The OS will run it in compatibility mode, emulating a PowerPC. (Apple calls this compatibility mode Rosetta, which of course has nothing to do with the Rosetta BOINC project.)

If you do this, be sure to give your native Intel application a higher version number when you do release it, so that clients will download it.

However, running a PowerPC application in compatibility mode has two significant drawbacks:

(1) Screensaver graphics do not work.

(2) Since it is running under emulation, your application will run at reduced efficiency. But the benchmarks are based on running native Intel applications. This may cause scheduler problems, such as uncompleted deadlines and inadequate credit for participants.

So it is important to make a native Intel application available as soon as possible.

It is very easy to add a new platform to your server with the xadd utility. For directions on how to do this, see these web pages:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/platform.php

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/tool_xadd.php

BOINC supports all PowerPC Macs running OS 10.3.0 or later, and all Intel Macs. (The Intel Macs themselves require OS 10.4.4 or later.)

The easiest way to build your application for these two platforms is to build each one on its native platform. In other words, do your powerpc-apple-darwin build on a PowerPC Mac running OS 10.3.9, and your i686-apple-darwin build on an Intel Mac.

But Apple provides the tools to allow you to cross-compile your application on any Mac (PowerPC or Intel) running OS 10.4 or later. Here is how:

All BOINC software for Power PC Macs must be built using GCC 3.3 and MacOS10.3.9 SDK to assure backward compatibility with OS 10.3. If building a PowerPC application on an Intel Mac, you must also specify "-arch ppc" in the compiler and linker flags.

All BOINC software for Intel Macs must be built using GCC 4.0 and MacOS10.4.u SDK to allow cross-compiling. If building an Intel application on a PowerPC Mac, you must also specify "-arch i386" in the compiler and linker flags.

You can find examples of how to do this for two different kinds of configure / make scripts in the HEAD branch of the BOINC CVS tree at boinc/mac_build/buildcurl.sh and boinc/mac_build/buildjpeg.sh.

The lipo utility is used at the end of each of these scripts to combine the two binaries into a single "Universal Binary" file. You won't need to do that with you project applications, since you will be distributing them separately under the two platforms. But if you prefer, you can create a Universal Binary and distribute the same file for both i686-apple-darwin and powerpc-apple-darwin platforms.

Note that the BOINC libraries (and any third-party libraries) which you link with your applications must be built with the same configuration as the application itself. Follow the instructions earlier in this document to build the needed libraries.

Additional information on building Unix applications universal can be found here:

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Porting/Conceptual/PortingUnix/compiling/chapter_4_section_3.html

and here:

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/universal_binary/universal_binary_compiling/chapter_2_section_7.html


For information on making your code work with GCC 4:

http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/DeveloperTools/GCC40PortingReleaseNotes/index.html

And it seems we have an alpha tester ready and waiting :-)

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And it seems we have an alpha tester ready and waiting :-)

TWO! My Mini CD is getting more and more bored with crunching for Seti and Einstein :)

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The boinc developers are activley asking people to make the Mac Intel Client at the same time as the PPC one. Especially with the new 5.4 release.

And also to notify them about it.

Though with Rom on the team here, i am assuming they already know.
http://www.ssl.berkeley.edu/pipermail/boinc_dev/2006-April/005266.html

[boinc_dev] Public rollout of i686-apple-darwin platform
Charlie Fenton charlief at ssl.berkeley.edu
Tue Apr 11 05:12:04 PDT 2006

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The public release of BOINC version 5.4 is imminent; it is currently
in final alpha test. This means that the general public will be
running BOINC natively on Intel Macintoshes.

When Intel Mac users upgrade to 5.4, they will be switched to the new
i686-apple-darwin platform. If your project has not implemented this
platform, they will no longer be able to run your application.

Apple has already converted six models to Intel processors, including
two models each of the iMac, PowerBook Pro and Mac Mini. They plan
to have all models switched by the end of 2006.

I would find it very helpful to have a list of projects which have
applications for the Macintosh. Please take a moment and let us know
if your project supports:
- Macintosh PowerPC
- Macintosh Intel
- Graphics on Macintosh

Thanks for your help!

For more information on implementing the i686-apple-darwin platform,
see my earlier post at:
http://www.ssl.berkeley.edu/mailman/private/boinc_projects/2006-February/001721.html

Build instructions for BOINC and project applications for the Mac can
be found at:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/mac_build.html

Cheers,
--Charlie

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