Doing ECM through a server

[jasong]

Hi:

I've got ecm installed, but all the helpfiles are in RichText format or somesuch, which means I need the Windows 2000 CD. I own a legal copy of Windows, but it's in my dad's office and our relationship is so dysfunctional it's painful to even talk to him.

Could someone help me figure out how to use ecm-6.0 with a server?

[wblipp]

1. The help files use the "newline" convention instead of the "carriage return + line feed" convention. Many programs are smart enough to translate this properly, as well as simple utilities to make the conversion. Try Word or WordPad first, then move on to other choices.

2. Are you trying to set up an ECM Server, or do you only want to set up an ECM Client that will access a server set up by somebody else?

William

[jasong]

Originally Posted by wblipp

1. The help files use the "newline" convention instead of the "carriage return + line feed" convention. Many programs are smart enough to translate this properly, as well as simple utilities to make the conversion. Try Word or WordPad first, then move on to other choices.

2. Are you trying to set up an ECM Server, or do you only want to set up an ECM Client that will access a server set up by somebody else?

William

I apologize. My sleeping patterns are screwed up, so I've been doing and posting things that are better kept to myself. I would actually like to learn about factoring in general, whether through a server not hosted by me, or through the manual reserving process.

I looked up ecm(actually "elliptical curve method") on the Internet and found all of 26 pages that Google considered "unique."

Could someone please direct me to where I can go to learn the basics and maybe find a week's worth of work for a 1.75GHz Sempron?

[wblipp]

For about a week someone with an email address that begins "jasong@" has been using the ElevenSmooth ECM Server. If that is you, then one possibility is to continue doing what you are doing. There are also other ECM Servers that you could connect to. If you have the new ECM Client, you can even set up multiple servers and tell the client what percentage to work on each server.

In a separate email you have asked about using ECM to work on one of the numbers from the OddPerfect.org composite page. People do that from time to time, but it isn't a good use of resources. The numbers posted there have already had ECM work, and are most effectively worked on using the Number Field Sieve, such as GGNFS.

If you want to contribute ECM work to the search for odd perfect numbers, the must useful work would be to connect to the "Most Wanted" ECM Server at oddperfect.no-ip.com:8201 . Most of the assignments here are looking for 55 digit factors of 19¹⁹³-1, one of two large factorizations needed to prove there are no odd perfect numbers under 10⁵⁰⁰. These tasks take about 2 Ghz hours each, and use moderately large amounts of memory. If that is a problem, you could connect to the "More Wanted" ECM Server at oddperfect.no-ip.com:8202. These assignments are looking for 40 to 45 digit factors of numbers less than 300 digits with no known factors. These numbers have the potential to become roadblocks in the future.

Running an ECM client is easy and helpful, but it provides about as much excitement as watching paint dry. People often want a more hands on experience when helping a project. A common way to achieve this greater sense of involvment is to pick one or more numbers that become "your" numbers, to set up the input files yourself, to start up the ecm process manually, to check the log files visually, and to personally compose messages about factors found and curves run. If this appeals to you, the easiest place to start is probably the Cunningham pages in this forum. You can pick from among all the unfinished Cunningham numbers, you can see how much work has previously been done, and you can post results directly in the fora. If you want to do that and also work on numbers of some interest to OddPerfect.org, pick numbers of the form p^q-1, where p and q are both odd primes.