Hi everybody! Welcome to this LHC@home tutorial for Windows users.
My name is Karolina. I am a student in the IT Department at CERN.
Today, I would like to show how you can support scientists in their quest for a better understanding of our universe just by offering the spare power of your processor.
For this purpose we are going to use BOINC, which is a program that uses your computer to solve scientific problems.
The BOINC allows you to participate in many different volunteering cloud computing projects from all around the world,
some of them help scientists working at Large Hadron Collider. The largest particle collaider, which is at CERN.
At the end of this tutorial you will be able to run computational tasks for one of the LHC projects.
To begin we go to LHC@home website and choose the "Join us" tab.
First thing we are told to do is to install the BOINC program.
it will be redirected to the website with the latest stable version of the BOINC program.
Now you can choose to downlaod BOINC with VirtualBox or without.
I recommend to install the BOINC program with VirtualBox because most of the LHC@home projects require VirtualBox.
Don't worry if you have already installed the Virtualbox , the installation proccess will be the same.
Now we need to wait, when we download the official BOINC client installer.
It will install both, the BOINC client which is the
official BOINC client program running jobs and the boinc-manager which is a graphical user interface.
The installation process is similar to other installations on Windows, but if you have any problem don't hesitate to contact us.
I will quickly do the installation process. After installation the boinc-client should start when the machine reboots.
It will start automatically and will be ready to use when you open the boinc-manager.
Now you should be able to run the boinc client and the boincmgr, but you are not yet running a project.
To change that, go to the LHC@home website where under the "Projects" tab you can find the list of projects related to CERN.
There you can read more about the purposes of each project and you can choose the one that interest you most.
Then go to the BOINC site of the project, choose "log in", create an account and fill out a form.
With BOINC you can run more then one project at the same time, so I encourage you to sign-up for a several.
By now you should have BOINC maybe with virtualbox installed on your computer and be a member of at least one project.
THIS STEP IS NO LONGER NEEDED!
Voila, BOINC should be now up and running.
From within the boinc-manager you can also add new projects and manage the ones you are in.
You can, for example, limit the CPU, from 100% to 60%.
The important thing is to checked in the proccesor usage "Computing allowed"-"while computer is in use"
These options will help you to use BOINC without worrying about slowing down your computer or interfeer the other work.
You can also see more options when you choose an advanced view.
Here you can monitor your project and see the task of the project you chose before.
Thank you for following this tutorial and I hope BOINC is now up and running for you.
If you want to know more about different BOINC options go to the official BOINC website,
We will also be very happy to assist you on the project forum.
That you can find here.
Thank you again and bye!