Update on 10^227-1 Progress

[dleclair]

Hi,

As of yesterday we have sieved about 10.5 million lines and collected about 44.2 million relations for 10^227-1.

We estimate that we'll need slightly less than 80 million relations before we can start the post-processing steps so as you can see we still have a good distance to go.

Our combined processing power has been growing steadily. We're now sieving approximately 325K lines per day whereas one month ago we were closer to an average of 225K lines per day. The number of users participating daily has remained fairly steady in the range of 35-40 but the number of machines active from those users has grown from the high 80s to over 100 with the record at 107 on June 10th.

We have a few other notes to pass on. You might have noticed that the stats on the home page have been steadily growing and are starting to dominate the page area. We're working to correct that. We're also looking into ways to improve the stats so sorting works better and to support the ability of users to group together in teams.

On the client front, the GUI for Windows is being updated to offer a more streamlined interface with tabs to organize the information presented. Also, a client for Solaris will soon be available which we hope will open up the door for participation by yet more volunteers.

On the server side, fixes to the blacklisting algorithm are being tested and will be implemented soon.

Thanks to everyone for their contributions and happy sieving!

The NFSNET Team

Chris, Don, Jeff, Paul and Richard

[apocalypse]

Hey guys -

I've been sieving for a couple of weeks now, and I wanted to thank you for the great job you've done putting this together.

I was wondering if you guys could post updates like this somewhere on the nfsnet site, as I never really thought to look for them on the mersenne forums before now.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by apocalypse

Hey guys -

I've been sieving for a couple of weeks now, and I wanted to thank you for the great job you've done putting this together.

I was wondering if you guys could post updates like this somewhere on the nfsnet site, as I never really thought to look for them on the mersenne forums before now.

Good point. Updates used to be posted on the main www.nfsnet.org page but standards have slipped 8-(

This particular update was sent to the mailing list (nfsnet-l) as I read it there myself. If you are not on that list, I suggest you join it.

Paul

[Xyzzy]

Any chance you can create a thread here to mirror the mailing list?

[Paulie]

So how does it look, by the end of the month we should be wrapped up with the current work? Will we need new clients for the new number?

:) :)

[Wacky]

Originally Posted by Paulie

So how does it look, by the end of the month we should be wrapped up with the current work?

I would hope that we can announce the factors before the end of the month. Preliminary estimates indicate that we might need fewer relations than originally anticipated. We should be finished with the sieving some time next week.

Originally Posted by Paulie

Will we need new clients for the new number?

Additional clients would be welcome. To some extent, we are limiting the complexity of the numbers considered for the next factorization because of the calendar time required for sieving. With more sievers, we can collect relations more quickly and thus tackle more difficult numbers.

The next number is M713. The changeover is automatic. If you are not actively sieving on 10,227-, you will miss out on some of the 2,713- assignments.