Diet BOINC Screensaver Module Files

Diet BOINC. A no-graphics lightweight alternative xscreensaver module
for boincscr.


BOINC GUI USERS: There is supposedly a nice module for Xscreensaveer 
called boincscr *if* you are running BOINC with graphics, also known 
as BOINC GUI.  If you are using BOINC GUI, that may be what you want 
to use. If, like some BOINC users your distro does not have available 
libraries to run boincscr OR if you run the BOINC commandline version, 
boinc_client, read on...

If the default BOINC screensaver, boincscr, is not working as 
expected in Linux (showing a black screen with the words 'boinc not 
running' or similar), Diet BOINC may be able to be used as an 
alternative.

BOINC COMMANDLINE USERS: If you are running BOINC command line, as 
I do, a screensaver module which calls graphics functions which 
aren't running isn't so useful. A module without BOINC GUI graphics 
support is what we have here. So, no, it isn't graphics-rich as they 
say.  It does monitor and display basic BOINC activity in a 
minimalist display.


THE ACTUAL CODE. Note that Xscreensaver is written in C and calls 
the dietboinc.py Python code with a very tiny C stub.  Therefore, 
the Python code herein is limited FIRST to that code which can be passed 
to C without breaking, and SECOND to Python code which does not require 
non-standard (i.e, default installed) Python modules/functions (my choice).
This means ANSI colors, for example, which work in raw Python, but bork 
when passed to C without extra modules to interpret them.
 
THIS INSTALLER REPLACES THE MODULE /usr/bin/boincscr 
(BUT IT BACKS IT UP IN /usr/bin/ if you use the installer). If you have NOT
installed the BOINC package which provides boincscr and wires it in to 
Xscreensaver, the installer will abort. You must have all compents 
installed for Diet BOINC to install as an Xscreensaver module 
(see INSTALL for details).


COMPATIBILITY: Diet BOINC has been coded for and tested in CentOS/Red Hat
Linux and Ubuntu. If you are not running one of these, there's a good 
chance you can still run Diet BOINC provided that you can install 
Xscreensaver and the BOINC installer from Berkeley at 
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php. See INSTALL for help.


NOTE: After and any all tweaks/changes to screensaver components or 
settings, you want to restart the daemon in the Xscreensaver Preferences!


A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIMING.  Diet BOINC gets its figures (percent of 
processing completed, elapsed time) directly from BOINC generated stats 
files.  As such it is completely dependent on those files being updated 
to provide updated numbers as a screen saver feature.  HOWEVER, 
DIFFERENT @HOME PROJECTS UPDATE THE STATS FILES AT DIFFERING RATES. 
For example, SETI@Home updates stats roughly twice per minute, but 
during testing of Diet BOINC, Cosmology@Home has taken well in excess of 
an hour between stats file updates. There are really two ways to address 
this discrepancy.  There could be a fudge/average figure provided in the 
Diet BOINC display, but the very fact that the figure is fudge-averaged 
is unattractive (what's the point of a number display updating if it's a 
made up number?).  The other option, the one Diet BOINC uses, is to 
increase the time between reads, a little for SETI@Home, a lot for 
Cosmology@Home, somewhere in between for Rosetta@Home (other projects 
were not tested). There is no point in reading a stats file repeatedly 
when there is virtually no chance it has been updated yet, thus the built
in delay. 

THE FINE PRINT. This program is free software: you can redistribute it 
and/or modify  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as 
published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the 
License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed
in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even
the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR 
PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

It is purely optional...you may use Diet BOINC forever and a day at 
no cost, but if you would like to contribute something for Diet BOINC, 
it will certainly encourage me in developing future projects and 
distributing them through similar channels. 

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Distributed under the GNU General Public License compliments of 
P. K. Carlisle LLC at www.pkcarlisle.com. Notes to mailATpkcarlisleDOTcom. 
Follow on Twitter @pkcarlislellc.

(C) 2015 P. K. Carlisle LLC. 
Not affiliated with BOINC or the Xscreensaver project.