This guide is a remake of the guide by Eliot Phillips. It seems that the original guide has disappeared, so I have created this one. Please note that I did not verify all of the information contained in this guide, but I did try to make it as accurate as possible.

Getting Started

Go to Stanford's site and download the appropriate client. Anyone with a personal computer running Windows 9x, NT, XP, Mac OSX, and Linux will find clients there. BSD users generally run the Linux client.

Picking the Client

There are several different clients available; Text Console, GUI, and Screensaver.

As far as speed is concerned Text Console>GUI>Screensaver. Similarly the clients are different in speed as well; Windows>Linux>OSX This is due to the availability of compilers for each platform. Linux users can gain speed by running the Windows console in WINE.

If you're going for performance DO NOT run the screensaver version. It wastes approximately 15% of the CPU's power just drawing pretty protein images. The GUI version has been known to interfere with some games so. The console version is recommended.

This guide will focus on the Linux client.

Setup

1. Download the file and extract it to your home folder
2. Bring up a terminal in your home directory

3. Run sudo ./fah6

For each of the following, do what is listed in italics, then press the [Enter] key on your keyboard:

• User name [Anonymous]? Type in an unused user name. Use this same user name on all of your machines that you install the client on.

• Team Number [0]? Type in the number 45104

• Passkey []? Leave this answer blank.

• Ask before fetching/sending work (no/yes) [no]? Decide on how you want it configured. My recommendation is to just leave it blank. (It will default to "no".)

• Use proxy (yes/no) [no]? Unless you are behind a proxy, the default answer ("no") is correct.

• Acceptable size of work assignment and work result packets (bigger units may have large memory demands) -- 'small' is <5MB, 'normal' is <10MB, and 'big' is >10MB (small/normal/big) [normal]? Usually, it is best to leave this alone. If you know what you're doing, however, feel free to change it to suit your needs.

• Change advanced options (yes/no) [no]? The default is fine here, as well.

The client should begin to run. In the future, when you run sudo ./fah6 from your home directory, it will simply start the client. (It saves the configuration information from the first time.)

Other Options

Here is a list of different options you can pass to the client. You can run also see this list by running sudo ./fah6 from your home directory.

Options:

• -config Configure user information
• -configonly Configure user information, then exit
• -help Dispaly this usage screen
• -queueinfo Get information on queued work units
• -delete x Delete item #x from work queue
• -send x Send result #x to server then exit. Use x=all to send all results
• -verbosity x Sets the output level, from 1 to 9 (max). The default is 3

• -pause Pause after finishing & trying to send current unit

• -oneunit Exit after completing one unit
• -forceasm Force core assembly optimizations to be used if available
• -advmethods Use new advanced scientific cores and/or work units if available
• -gpu x Run GPU code on the specified display number
• -freeBSD Make brandelf system call on downloaded cores.
• -openBSD Make elf2olf system call on downloaded cores.

Running Folding@Home

Disable any screensavers, as they rob you of valuable idle processing cycles. I set my monitor to go blank after 1 minute, and off after 2 (to save electricity). Leave your machine 24/7 if you can take it. Computers that are off do not compute anything. You can recruit others to fold under your user name if you are persuasive. I cannot say that I would recommend this, but it's one way to get more credit. (It would give you credit for their folding.)

If necessary, you can stop the client by holding down the [Ctrl] key and tapping the [C] key from the same terminal that you started it from. Alternately, you can run sudo killall fah6. If you want to, you can set the client to run at startup. This should be possible by adding an entry for it under the Startup Programs tab of the Sessions options box. To access this box, go to "System", "Preferences", and then "Sessions".

Overclocking

Overclocking is one way to get more points when folding. Be very careful if you choose to do this, as it has the potential to destroy your computer. There are plenty of guides out there for overclocking if you choose to do so.

Borging

Named after the Star Trek race of assimilation, "borging" refers to installing F@H, or any DC (Distributed Computing) program, on someone's computer, usually without their knowledge. It is explicitly forbidden by the F@H EULA, but folks do it anyway. Be careful if you choose to do this; people have gotten fired over borging. There is a program being written by a Hack-A-Day team member that examines a computer's hardware setup and decides, based on how much RAM, CPU speed, number of CPUs, etc. which way to install F@H for the best, lease invasive, performance.

Conclusion

Have fun, and start folding!