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The
following quick start tips are included in the simulators
documentation:
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=== QuickStart for evolution@home ====================
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Thank you for participating in evolution@home!
This simulator helps uncover potential genetic causes of
extinction of endangered and not-yet-endangered species
by investigating Muller's ratchet. Your help to improve
understanding of such genomic decay might one day be
used to fight it.
This simulator can not get tasks and return results
automatically. Therefore we ask you to do that. This gives
you maximal control over your Internet connections and
gives you most freedom to choose what you want to compute.
To get started quickly, do the following:
1. Make a new, empty folder (for example with
the name
"evolution@home" on your
desktop) and move this
simulator-program into that folder.
Move no unrelated
files to that folder.
2. Double-click the simulator just to generate
a quick,
anonymous preferences file and estimate
performance.
If you want to run complex simulations
or personalize
results then you have to customize
preferences. Just
answer the questions of the simulator
or edit the
preferences file to do that.
You can get the perfomance estimated
from the list of
values at the beginning of every
log file.
3. Goto the Simulator section of the website
http://www.evolutionary-research.net
and follow
the link to the run-files for S005
on that page.
4. Search the run-files-collections-index page
for a link
to a run-file with simulations that
demand less RAM and
uninterrupted time than you want
to commit. (Do not use
virtual memory and do not forget
the RAM you need for your
daily work!) Follow that link.
5. If you do not want to select certain simulations
from a
run-file, you may save that web page
from your browser
as a run-file (text-file under the
name "run" or "run.txt"
to your simulators folder). Currently
that is to
C:\WINDOWS\DESKTOP\evolution@home
6. If you want to select certain simulations only,
open an
ordinary text file from any editor
on your computer and
copy and paste as many simulations
as you want to compute
from the website to your text file.
Select only simulations
that need less computing time than
you can expect your
computer to work uninterruptedly.
Compare the perfomance
of your computer to the reference
system on the website
to avoid surprises. The simplest
way is to copy and paste
a whole range of simulate-commands
that fits your time
constraints.
How to select the right
simulation-complexity:
If your computer crashes
about 5 times a day then
select simulations with
estimated computing times of
1-2 hours at most,
smaller being better here. As
intermediate states of
a simulation can not be saved
currently, this may allow
a simulation to complete
before the next crash.
If your computer almost never
crashes (and has not
to be shut down regularily) or you
are about to leave for
holidays, then select simulations
with estimated computing
times of 5 days to many weeks,
larger being better here.
As probably few people have
such stable computing
environments such contributions
are very important: the
most interesting simulations
usually take the most
RAM and time. If a simulation
is interrupted occasionally
due to a crash, this is
no catastrophe, as intermediate
results are recorded
and will be evaluated
too. However, completed runs are
more interesting, where
they can be obtained.
Save that (unformatted ascii-) text
file under the name
"run" or "run.txt"
and move it to the simulators folder.
7. Now doubleclick the simulator to start computation.
The simulator will read the run-file,
compute results, and
collect them in a file called "S005_RESULTS.txt".
Then it will quit. If you put an
alias/link to the
simulator in the startup/autostart-folder
of your operating
system, then simulations continue
automatically with the
next simulation after a crash. You
may want to switch of
screensavers and energy saving functions
to increase
performance. If you want to stop
a simulation without
aborting it, move a file with the
name "break.txt" to
the simulations folder. Then you
can use your computing
time for other intense tasks and
resume the original
simulation after completing the other
tasks.
8. When you want to submit results (after or during
computation),
just move the file called ""S005_RESULTS.txt"
away from
the simulators folder and email it
to
simulator005@evolution-at-home.net
as an attachment. Then delete the
file or store it
elsewhere, but do not move it back
to the simulators folder
once you submitted it (to avoid submission
of duplicates).
9. For additional details read the manual.
But whatever you do, be part of the
adventure
and enjoy the evolutionary research
you are doing.
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