Q: What is the difference between all those projects ? (#8368)
A:
BoinC:
This is the framework in which varies projects get executed. The only program a user needs to download himself is the BOINC application. When you run BOINC for the first time or whenever you request to join a new project it will prompt you for two pieces of information: the URL of the project home page and the account KEY that you received when signing up for the project. The BOINC application handles the download of project specific application programs and workunits. BOINC projects give credit in the form of cobblestones, a unit that is related to the amount of time spend processing a workunit and the cpu power of the system processing it.
SETI@home/Boinc:
This is a port of the classic SETI@Home client to the BOINC framework with only one major change: in addition to the 2-bit data collected all the time at Arecibo (northern hemisphere) it will also be able to process the higher resolution 8-bit data collected during the re-observation event (during re-observation both 8 and 2 bit data was collected, but only 2 bit data has been processed yet). Due to changes in the schedule, this will be the first BOINC project to go live.
SETI-2:
This is a different SETI@Home client that also runs in the BOINC framework. This one will process the data collected at Parkes Observatory (southern hemisphere) which is in a different format then either of the two formats used for Arecibo workunits.
Astropulse:
This is another project in the BOINC framework. In the original schedule Astropulse was intended to be the first project to go global/public to ensure that the BOINC framework would be able to handle everything expected of it. Astropulse uses the Arecibo collected data but processes it in a different way that allows searching for pulsars instead of extra terrestial intelligence.
by leibold