Can we please put a switch in to turn off the default scheduler. I like round robin better. To facilitate the ease of management for experienced users, Have a scheduling page that has a per project cache setting and project time to run.

The time to run can be broken into two types run full length round robin or timed round robin.

full length round robin would run the full time given per day for project. timed round robin could run project share * quanta.

I do not like the scheduler constantly running in an error state. I do not like when the scheduler prevents the running of a project or exclusively running one project for weeks.

It would stop a majority of the questions that are mentioned on board. Why can't I run xxxx right now. or Why is xxxx the only thing running.

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EDF is not an error state.

There will always be some combination of queue size, number of projects and deadlines that can not be met using round robin scheduling. The clients with EDF mode are able to deal with this type combination without user intravention.

I think that doing away with round robin scheduling would be better for the BOINC project in general.
Reasons:
1) If there is only EDF mode then the queue length can be controlled better, 3 days queue would be 3 days of work. Not 3 days per project or something in between.
2) Projects would get faster turnaround without having to artificially reduce thier deadlines. No other projects stealing processing time, once the work is on the host it is generally processed in order.
3) Hosts that die would not take as much work with them. A shorter queue means less work is wasted when a host goes belly up.
4) Less traffic to the servers. If a host already has enough work there is no reason to keep trying to contact the server at a project without work on that host.
5) Recovery after an outage should improve. Instead of all hosts retrying at a fixed intraval they would be more random, with a larger range, in when they decided they needed to conatact that server. This happens because work that is on the computer must be processed before more work is desired.

These reasons are also an argument for the max_projects_on_host preference. Since most of them have the same or similar effects if that preference was available.

I know the round robin scheduler will not go away. There are too many participants without the patience to see that BOINC would get to project X after it has done work for projects A thru W.

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BOINC WIKI

BOINCing since 2002/12/8

I do not like the scheduler constantly running in an error state. I do not like when the scheduler prevents the running of a project or exclusively running one project for weeks.

Then simply reduce the size of your "Connect to network" setting to the point where it doesn't do that anymore. You are in total control of that.

It would stop a majority of the questions that are mentioned on board. Why can't I run xxxx right now. or Why is xxxx the only thing running.

The changes you are proposing would dramatically increase the number of such questions. A lot of people can't micromanage effectively now and you want to make it more complex? There is an extremely simple solution which you don't seem to be able to see:-

• Decide firmly the exact share of your resources you would like each project to have.
  
• Set (and don't keep fiddling with) those resource shares on each project website.
  
• Set your "Connect" interval to 0.1 days just until your excessive caches clear.
  
• As work is reduced to more manageable levels, EDF mode will not be needed and will not be seen.
  
• When you have cleaned up the excess work (which could easily take more than a week), start increasing your "Connect" setting slowly eg 0.1 -> 0.3 -> 0.6 -> 1.0, etc, allowing a day or two between changes.
  
• Stop and leave it alone when you have adequate work or there is any hint that EDF mode might kick in again. Reduce a little if needed.
  

If you do this, BOINC will always rotate between projects that have work available and you will never see the "problems" you mention that I've quoted above. BOINC will faithfully honour your chosen resource shares if you simply allow it to do that. If you try to "force" you will just make things worse.

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Cheers,
Gary.

EDF is not an error state.
deleted text....
I know the round robin scheduler will not go away. There are too many participants without the patience to see that BOINC would get to project X after it has done work for projects A thru W.

SCheduler is not running in normal mode letting projects run. It says it has downloaded too much. It has noticed it created an error condition. It has too fix the situation that caused an error, too many work units. Therefore the scheduler is operating in an error mode. If scheduler was properly scheduling workunits, it should have proper amount of download for the time given and rarely have to fix itself. A proper setting should nopt cause error mode. It is a visible bad looking design. With a usefull setting, and a usefull setting missing, it is in a software error mode.

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EDF is not an error state.
deleted text....
I know the round robin scheduler will not go away. There are too many participants without the patience to see that BOINC would get to project X after it has done work for projects A thru W.

SCheduler is not running in normal mode letting projects run. It says it has downloaded too much. It has noticed it created an error condition. It has too fix the situation that caused an error, too many work units. Therefore the scheduler is operating in an error mode. If scheduler was properly scheduling workunits, it should have proper amount of download for the time given and rarely have to fix itself. A proper setting should nopt cause error mode. It is a visible bad looking design. With a usefull setting, and a usefull setting missing, it is in a software error mode.

At the minimum what would make me happy is the ability to turn off the deadline withing two connect rates. It would look like it was working properly.

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If scheduler was properly scheduling workunits, it should have proper amount of download for the time given and rarely have to fix itself.

Mine downloads the correct amounts of work for 3 different projects. Then again, it only happened after the initial 3 days to a week "leave it alone, do not touch it, do not look at it, do not try to manage it yourself" mode...

Something that you can't seem to manage to do.

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Can the downloaded exe files be ran without any other native code loaded from where they are?

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