Debian package for the PrimeNet GIMPS client

'prime-net' is a Debian package for the PrimeNet GIMPS client. The idea is to set everything up so that GIMPS is automatically started at boot time, so that the logs are rotated regularly, all that to make it simpler to run the GIMPS. Why would you want to run the GIMPS client? Well here's what the package description says:

Donate your extra CPU cycles to a worthy cause!

You could discover one of the most coveted finds in all of Mathematics - a new Mersenne prime number. The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) harnesses the power of thousands of small computers like yours to solve the seemingly intractable problem of finding HUGE, hundreds of thousands of digits or more, prime numbers.

Join in on this fun, yet serious research project and in addition to the joy of making a mathematical discovery, you might win some cash. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is offering a $100,000 award to the first person to discover a ten million digit prime number!

Fair warning: A 500 MHz PC will take a full year to test a single exponent with only 1 chance in 250,000 of finding such a prime number. But you can also do very useful work in much less time: primality tests on smaller primes take about a month and factoring tests take much less. The details of how GIMPS will handle this award are at http://www.mersenne.org/prize.htm

Note that you can also use this package to participate to ECM and P-1 factoring projects. Some of these projects, like the Fermat number factorisation, also carry cash prizes.

For more information, see http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm

You can download this package from the links below. Now I must warn you: this is where I put the very latest version so insert the usual disclaimer about the software being provided as is and without garantee. Now if you trust me you can give it a try and let me know if you have any problem.

This package is based on the latest version of the GIMPS client, version 23.5. The last revision of this package has been released on 2003/12/29. And now comes the download section:

• prime-net_23.5-5_i386.deb: the package for x86
• prime-net_23.5-5.dsc: the description
• prime-net_23.5-5_i386.changes: changes in the latest release
• prime-net_23.5.orig.tar.gz: the binaries from Mersenne.org
• prime-net_23.5-5.diff.gz: the package sources

You can also get (an older version of) this package from Debian's archives:

• in Unstable: http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/misc/prime-net.html
• in Testing: http://www.debian.org/Packages/frozen/misc/prime-net.html

Finally you can also get the GIMPS client directly from one of the following well established sources:

• http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm
• http://entropia.com/ips/#free_software