# The Ksetiwatch Handbook

Gordon
Machel

    gmachel@users.sourceforge.net

2000-2003
2004
Gordon Machel
&FDLNotice;
05/20/2003
2.6.1

Ksetiwatch is a monitoring tool for the Seti@home distributed computing project, which searches for signals of extraterrestrial life. It displays the state of the Seti@home client(s) running on your computer or in your local network, and logs/manages completed work units. In addition, Ksetiwatch features a skymap that displays all work units processed, a graphical display of scientific data (gaussians, pulses, and triplets), a dock icon with detailed status information about a client, the option to start/stop the SETI@home clients, and much more.

KDE
Ksetiwatch
Applications
seti@home
seti
monitoring

## Introduction

Ksetiwatch is a monitoring tool for the SETI@home distributed computing project, which searches for signals of extraterrestrial life. It circumvents the most annoying feature of text-based SETI@home clients: the lack of information about the state of the client(s), the progress of data crunching, the work units currently being processed, and about already completed work units.

Ksetiwatch provides the same look-and-feel of the popular SETIWatch program, written for the Windows95/98/NT platforms by Mark Loukko. It shares many of the features offered by SETIWatch, and provides some other. The highlights are:

- monitors as many clients as you want,

- docks into KDE's panel,

- notifies you when new high signals occur,

- automatically logs the results of completed work units,

- automatically logs all interesting signals returned to the SETI@home server, including their profile for a graphical representation,

- displays lists of completed work units and interesting signals,

- is fully compatible to SETIWatch/SETILog log files,

- shows currently processed work units as well as logged WUs on a sky map,

- starts and stops SETI@home clients; clients can be run with configurable settings,

- offers detailed status display (running, stopped, finished, loading),

- shows Gaussian, pulse, and triplet graphs.

## Getting Started

This section is intended for first-time users. Especially if you haven't run the SETI@home client before you should read on.

If this is the first time ever that you try to start the SETI@home client don't try it via Ksetiwatch! This is because the folks at Berkeley want you to create a new account, and this can only be done interactively.

Note that this has to be done only once. After correct installation of the package, the client can be conveniently controlled via Ksetiwatch.

This chapter will guide you through the process of installing the SETI@home client in your home directory, and configuring Ksetiwatch to monitor the freshly installed client. It is assumed that you have downloaded the tarball with the client software (e.g. `setiathome-3.03.i386-pc-linux-gnu-gnulibc2.1.tar`), and it is stored in your home directory.

So, open a console window, and make sure that you are in your home directory.

     % pwd
    /home/gordon
    %

If this is not the case, change to your home directory with `cd ~`, or `cd $HOME`. Now, unpack the downloaded package.

     % tar xvf setiathome-3.03.i386-pc-linux-gnu-gnulibc2.1.tar
    setiathome-3.03.i386-pc-linux-gnu-gnulibc2.1/README
    setiathome-3.03.i386-pc-linux-gnu-gnulibc2.1/README.xsetiathome
    setiathome-3.03.i386-pc-linux-gnu-gnulibc2.1/setiathome
    setiathome-3.03.i386-pc-linux-gnu-gnulibc2.1/xsetiathome
    %

This command has created the new folder `setiathome-3.03.i386-pc-linux-gnu-gnulibc2.1` in your home directory and copied all files to that location. If you wish, you can rename that lengthy directory name by issueing the command `mv setiathome-3.03.i386-pc-linux-gnu-gnulibc2.1 setiathome`.

Now it's time to change into the freshly created SETI@home location and to start the SETI@home client. Note the funny `./` in front of the start command. It means that the executable file `setiathome` in the current working directory shall be started (by default, the current working directory is not in the search path under Unix/Linux).

     % cd setiathome
    %
    % ./setiathome
    SETI@home client.
    Platform: i386-pc-linux-gnu-gnulibc2.1
    Version: 3.03

    SETI@home is sponsored by individual donors around the world.
    If you'd like to contribute to the project,
    please visit the SETI@home web site at
    http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu.
    The project is also sponsored by the Planetary Society,
    the University of California, Sun Microsystems, Paramount Pictures,
    Fujifilm Computer Products, Informix, Engineering Design Team Inc,
    The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), Intel, Quantum Corporation,
    and the SETI Institute.

    SETI@home was developed by David Gedye (Founder),
    David Anderson (Director), Dan Werthimer (Chief Scientist),
    Leonard Chung, Hiram Clawson, Jeff Cobb, Charles Congdon, Charlie Fenton,
    Kyle Granger, Eric Heien, Mike Hill, Michael Kang, Eric Korpela,
    Matt Lebofsky, Peter Leiser, Brad Silen, Woody Sullivan, and Adam Wight.

    Welcome to SETI@home.
    We use your email address to identify you.
    Please type:
        1 to set up a new account (first-time users);
        2 to log into an existing account (returning users).
    Your choice (1 or 2):

Just follow the instructions given by the client now. Make sure that you are connected to the internet, so that the client can download the first work unit. After downloading the WU, the client should immediately start crunching the data (you won't notice this, because the client does not print any status information).

Now it's time to start Ksetiwatch if it's not already running. Click the big K in the panel to get the K-menu, move to Applications, and select Ksetiwatch. You are presented with the following window:

A screenshot of Ksetiwatch after the first startup.
Ksetiwatch start.

To add your client to the list of SETI@home locations right-click on the (empty) list view area (the large white field) in the Analysis tab. You will get a popup menu, choose Add... here. A dialog box will appear, where you have to fill in the required entries.

A screenshot of the dialog box for adding or editing a SETI@home location.
Add/edit dialog.

Type in a descriptive name for your SETI@home location under Description:, enter the directory where the SETI@home client resides (optionally, you can use the button to the right of the edit box to browse to the directory), and select a color. That's all, you're done. After clicking OK, Ksetiwatch should monitor your SETI@home location.

A detailed explanation of all options on the other dialog pages can be found in . For example, you can tell Ksetiwatch to start the SETI@home client whenever Ksetiwatch is started. By doing this, it won't be necessary to manually execute the SETI@home client in a terminal window in future sessions.

## Using Ksetiwatch

The Ksetiwatch window simply consists of a series of tabs where the information about running SETI@home locations is sorted in a more or less logical manner. Since Ksetiwatch is able to monitor as many SETI@home clients as you like, all information is organized in lists which are updated in regular intervals. The list entries can easily be sorted in ascending or descending order by clicking on the respective header.

By default Ksetiwatch logs completed work units automatically. Of course, for successful logging Ksetiwatch has to run in the background when the SETI@home client finishes a work unit.

In case you have upgraded the SETI@home client to version 3.x, Ksetiwatch automatically modifies the log file (`SETILog.csv`) such that the new pulse and triplet data can be logged as well. The old log file will be stored to `SETILog.old`. Please note that this feature is untested with network directories, so if the log files mean a lot to you, please make a back-up.

Ksetiwatch makes use of KDE's session management. This means that it's not necessary to close the program when logging out of KDE, or to restart it when starting a new KDE session. Optionally, Ksetiwatch will even start the SETI@home client(s) for you at start-up.

The contents of the tabs and the options you have will now be described in detail.

### The Analysis Tab

A screenshot of the Analysis tab.
Analysis tab.

This tab displays the current status of your SETI@home clients. It shows the progress of data crunching, the processing efficiency, and the top scores of the actual work unit. In detail:

#### Location

The name you have chosen for the SETI@home client.

#### Status

The status of the SETI@home client. This can be one of the following: running (blue icon), stopped (red stop sign), finished (green check mark), or loading (yellow lightning).

#### Chirp Rate

The chirp rate at which the client is currently processing.

#### % Done

This entry shows the progress of the SETI@home client in percent.

#### CPU Time

The time the client has been busy processing the current work unit.

#### Time Left

The estimated time to complete the work unit.

#### %/CPU hour

This gives you an impression of the rate at which the client is progressing in one hour of CPU time.

#### MFlops

According to the SETI@home web site each work unit requires between 3.2*10^12 and 4.2*10^12 floating point operations (the exact value depends on the actual Angle Range). This entry shows how many Flops your computer is processing per second.

#### Spike

The highest spike found do far.

#### Strongest Gaussian

The strongest Gaussian with respect to its score value found so far. The score value is determined by (power/fit).

#### Strongest Pulse

The strongest pulse with respect to its score value found so far.

#### Strongest Triplet

The strongest triplet with respect to its score value found so far. Note that score and power values are identical for triplets, so the display of power has been omitted.

In addition, the Analysis tab is the place where to control the list of SETI@home clients you wish to monitor. This is done via a popup menu which appears when you click the right mouse button over the list of SETI@home locations. The right-click popup menu consists of the following functions:

Add...

  Adds a new SETI@home location to the list. This is done via a dialog box where you have to enter all the information Ksetiwatch needs to monitor the client. See here for details.

Edit...

  Right-clicking on an existing entry and choosing this function allows you to edit the settings for the selected SETI@home location. Like before, a dialog box will appear.

Delete

  Deletes the selected SETI@home location from the list. All SETI@home files as well as the list of logged work units will be retained, of course.

Start Client

  Tries to start the SETI@home client. Note that you need to have the permission to execute the client in the respective SETI@home location. This function possibly won't work for clients in mounted network shares (Samba or NFS shares).

Stop Client

  Tries to stop the SETI@home client. The same constraints as above apply here.

Show...

  Selecting items from this sub-menu allows you to display the highest signals found in the current work unit in a separate window. See here for details. In addition, there is an option to open a window which collects the client's text output. This output can contain useful information, e.g. in case of connection problems to the SETI@home server.

At the bottom of this tab, a few more control elements can be found.

  A click on this button initiates an attempt to start all SETI@home clients at once. Only the clients for which you have execution rights are started.

  If you want to manually refresh the list entries you can click the this button. Keep in mind that clicking the button might not necessarily have an effect, since newer versions of the SETI@home client update their files only once a minute.

  Tries to stop all clients in the list above. Only the clients for which you have execution rights are stopped.

Furthermore, there is a combo box allowing you to decide which clients are to be shown in the list. For instance, you can selectively display only the clients which are running, or those clients that have completed a work unit. This is especially useful for people who manage a long list of SETI@home clients. Finally, two buttons are provided for accessing this help and the Ksetiwatch homepage.

If you have enabled the `Minimize-to-Panel' feature (see ), the small icon in the KDE panel can inform you about the status and the progress of a selected SETI@home client. Just choose the location you wish to monitor by a single mousebutton click. You can even monitor two different locations in the KDE panel by starting a second instance of Ksetiwatch!

### The Data Info Tab

A screenshot of the Data Info tab.
Data Info tab.

The Data Info tab contains all important information about the work units currently processed. This includes:

#### From

The position in the sky this work unit was recorded. You can get a graphical representation by clicking the Skymap button at the bottom left. More details about the Skymap window can be found in .

#### Recorded On

The date and time the work unit was recorded. The time is given in GMT.

#### Source

The radio telescope that recorded the work unit.

#### Base Frequency

The base frequency of the work unit. The raw data used for SETI@home covers a 2.5 MHz band. To break it down into more manageable chunks, it is split into 256 subbands. Each of these subbands has a lowest frequency referred to as the Base Frequency.

#### Angle Range

Depending on the slew rate of the telescope, each work unit has a unique angle range of sky coverage. The client determines on the basis of this value how much work is to be done with the corresponding WU.

#### TeraFlops

The amount of floating point operations required to process the work unit (given in TeraFlops = 10^12 Flops). The calculation of this value is based on the research done by Roelof Engelbrecht and Lawrence Kirby.

### The User Info tab

The User Info tab presents details about the users running the specific SETI@home locations:

A screenshot of the User Info tab.
User Info tab.

#### Name

The name the user has registered with SETI@home.

#### WU Completed

The number of work units the user has completed.

#### Total CPU Time

The total CPU time for completed work units.

#### Average CPU Time

The average CPU time for completed work units.

#### Last Result

Date and time the user has returned the last work unit to SETI@home.

#### Register Time

Date and time when the user registered with SETI@home.

### The Completed Work Units tab

A screenshot of the Completed Work Units tab, showing the list of completed work units.
Completed Work Units tab, WU list.

Here you will find all the work units you have processed before sorted with respect to the location. In order to view the logged work units for a specific location, you just have to select the SETI@home location in the tree view at the left (if the tree view is in a collapsed state, double-click on "SETI Locations"). At the right side, you will then find the corresponding list. The following details are provided:

#### Date Logged

The date and time the work unit was logged. This is taken from the `result.sah` file.

#### Name of Work Unit

Pretty much self-explaining.

#### CPU Time

Amount of time the work unit took to complete.

#### % per CPU Hour

The rate at which the client has processed the work unit in one hour of CPU time.

#### Spike

The highest spike found in the work unit.

#### Strongest Gaussian

The strongest Gaussian with respect to its score value found in the work unit.

#### Strongest Pulse

The strongest pulse with respect to its score value found in the work unit.

#### Strongest Triplet

The strongest triplet with respect to its score value found in the work unit.

#### Recorded On

Date and time the work unit was recorded.

#### Base Frequency

The base frequency of the work unit.

#### Angle Range

Depending on the slew rate of the telescope, each work unit has a unique angle range of sky coverage. The client determines on the basis of this value how much work is to be done with the corresponding WU.

#### TeraFlops

The amount of floating point operations required to process the work unit (given in TeraFlops = 10^12 Flops). The calculation of this value is based on the research done by Roelof Engelbrecht and Lawrence Kirby.

A screenshot of the Completed Work Units tab, showing a summary list of all locations.
Completed Work Units tab, loc summary list.

Clicking on "SETI Locations" in the tree view gives you a summary list of all SETI@home locations. Here you will get the following information:

#### Work Units

The number of work units processed by the SETI@home location.

#### Total CPU Time

The total CPU time consumed by the SETI@home location.

#### Average CPU Time

The average CPU time to complete a work unit for the SETI@home location.

#### Record Spike

The record spike for the SETI@home location.

#### Record Gaussian

The record Gaussian for the SETI@home location.

#### Record Pulse

The record pulse for the SETI@home location.

#### Record Triplet

The record triplet for the SETI@home location.

Clicking on Returned Signals in the tree view presents you with some statistics about how many interesting signals have been found and returned to the SETI@home server. By selecting a specific location below the Returned Signals entry, you can examine how many and which kind of signals have been found in each work unit.

A screenshot of the Completed Work Units tab, showing a summary of all returned signals.
Completed Work Units tab, signal summary list.

The Total Spikes (Gaussians, Pulses, Triplets) columns show how many signals of the respective kind have been found and returned in total for a given location. The values in brackets represent the average amount per work unit. The Top Spike (Gaussian, Pulse, Triplet) columns inform you about the best signals in the list of returned signals.

A screenshot of the Completed Work Units tab, showing what kind of signals have been found in the work units.
Completed Work Units tab, signal list.

Just like above, this list shows the amount of signals and the best signals, this time only on work unit level.

Both the tree view at the left and the list of work units have a right-click popup menu with a few extra functions. Selecting a location in the tree view with a right-mouse-button click and choosing Show on Skymap opens the skymap window with all completed work units of the respective location. Doing the same with "SETI Locations" all logged work units will be displayed on the skymap. Alternatively, choosing Reload Locations updates all entries in the "Completed Work Unit" tab. This may be useful if you think that the displayed list is not up-to-date.

Selecting a work unit in the list of completed work units and choosing Show on Skymap opens the skymap window only with the highlighted work unit. If you leave the skymap window open and repeat the same thing with other entries, these work units will just be added to the skymap (without deleting the old from the skymap). This way you can build a customized view of your favorite work units.

Selecting the Show Logged Signals popup menu item opens a dialog window which presents more details about all the signals that have been returned to the SETI@home server. More details can be found in the following section, .

#### The Logged Signals Dialog

This window allows you to browse through all the signals that have been logged by Ksetiwatch and returned to the SETI@home server. The window basically consists of a tab widget, with each tab showing details about the four different types of signals.

##### 1. Spikes

Logged spike data is presented in a list view with the following columns:

- `Power:` The power of the spike in absolute values.

- `Resolution:` The frequency resolution of the FFT-generated data set, in which the spike was found.

- `Signal Ratio:` By the nature of the FFT, the power of spikes decreases with decreasing frequency resolution. The calculated signal ratio parameter compensates this effect and allows a resolution-independent comparison of spikes. Spikes with signal ratios larger than 22.0 are reported back to SETI@home.

- `RA, Dec:` The spike's position in the sky, shown as a right ascension (RA, in hr), declination (Dec, in deg) pair.

- `Frequency:` The frequency of the receiver in GHz.

- `Chirp Rate:` The chirp (or drift) rate in Hz/s.

##### 2. Gaussians

Logged gaussians are displayed in graphical form. By use of the navigation buttons below the graph, you can browse through the list of logged gaussians. A text box to the right shows the corresponding numeric parameters:

- `Power:` The fitted power of the gaussian in absolute values.

- `Mean:` The fitted mean value (i.e. the average background signal) of the gaussian profile.

- `Sigma:` This parameter represents the width of the gaussian.

- `Fit:` The quality of the fit to the recorded data. Lower is better.

- `Score:` The score of the gaussian. This value is determined by calculating (power/fit).

- `RA, Dec:` The position of the gaussian in the sky, shown as a right ascension (RA), declination (Dec) pair.

- `Frequency:` The frequency of the receiver in GHz.

- `Chirp Rate:` The chirp (or drift) rate in Hz/s.

##### 3. Pulses

Logged pulses are displayed and can be browsed in the same way as gaussians. Please note, however, that due to limitations of the SETI@home client some pulse profiles may not be available sometimes. The following parameters are listed:

- `Power:` The power of the pulse in absolute values.

- `Mean:` The average background signal of the pulse profile.

- `Period:` The period of the pulse signal in seconds.

- `Score:` The score of the pulse.

- `RA, Dec:` The position of the pulse in the sky, shown as a right ascension (RA), declination (Dec) pair.

- `Frequency:` The frequency of the receiver in GHz.

- `Chirp Rate:` The chirp (or drift) rate in Hz/s.

A screenshot of the Logged Signals dialog. Logged Signals dialog.

##### 4. Triplets

Logged triplets are displayed and can be browsed in the same way as gaussians. Please note, however, that due to limitations of the SETI@home client some triplet profiles may not be available sometimes. The following parameters are listed:

- `Power:` The power of the triplet in absolute values.

- `Mean:` The average background signal of the pulse profile.

- `Period:` The period of the triplet signal in seconds.

- `Score:` The score of the triplet. Identical to power.

- `RA, Dec:` The position of the triplet in the sky, shown as a right ascension (RA), declination (Dec) pair.

- `Frequency:` The frequency of the receiver in GHz.

- `Chirp Rate:` The chirp (or drift) rate in Hz/s.

By clicking the Save.. button, you can save the currently displayed signal to disk. The picture is saved in the png graphics format, adjusted to the standard size of 350x200 pixels.

### The Options Tab

A screenshot of the Options tab.
Options tab.

Ksetiwatch has some global settings which you can modify here.

#### Refresh Interval

This slider allows you to adjust the time interval between subsequent refreshs of the list entries. Since the latest SETI@home clients update their state files approximately once a minute, a value around 60 seconds is sufficient.

#### Time Format

Here you can switch between two time formats: either hours:minutes:seconds (hh:mm:ss) or days:hours:minutes:seconds (dd:hh:mm:ss).

#### Report New Signals

When Ksetiwatch has found a new high signal, it can report this event to you via a message box. You can easily specify for which kind of signal you wish to be notified: Spikes, Gaussians, Pulses, and/or Triplets. If you additionally check Only Records, Ksetiwatch will report signals only if they reach an all-time high (compared to the data found in the log files). This will keep the amount of report events to an absolute minimum.

In addition, if you like to play a notification sound along with the popup of the message box, check Play Sound and enter the file name of the sound sample in the field below (.wav files are supported). To test the sound, just click on the arrow button beside the edit box.

#### Minimize to Panel

When you minimize Ksetiwatch this switch allows you to minimize to the panel, thus freeing up precious space in the taskbar. To open the Ksetiwatch window again just click on the icon in the panel. Right-clicking the icon provides a popup menu with some commands to control the selected SETI@home client.

#### Show Grid in List Views

Here you can decide whether you want to have a grid in all list views. Especially for large lists a grid enhances readability.

### Adding or Editing a SETI@home Location

Adding or editing a SETI@home location is done via a dialog box. This window consists of several pages where all options are clearly arranged.

A screenshot of the add/edit dialog box: general settings of the SETI@home location.
Add/edit dialog.

The first page, Location, presents general settings of the SETI@home location. Mandatory entries are Description, which must contain a descriptive name for your SETI@home location, and Seti@home Directory, the directory where the SETI@home client is located. Optionally you can use the Browse button to the right of the edit box to select the SETI@home directory. Make sure that each SETI@home location has a unique color by pressing the Color button and selecting a color you like. This color will be used in the skymap window to mark the position in the sky where the work units have been recorded.

Optionally, custom programs or scripts can be executed when starting or stopping the SETI@home client. This can be helpful e.g. for the control of clients on remote computers. In that case, simple scripts could be written that log into the remote computer and start or stop the SETI@home client. To enable this feature, check Start-up executable and/or Shut-down executable, and enter the name of the program to be executed together with the complete path in the respective edit box below.

The second page, SETI@home Client, allows the adjustment of the settings and options of the SETI@home client. For instance, Ksetiwatch can start the SETI@home client for you at start-up. Enable this by checking Invoke SETI@home Client at Startup. Similarly, you can tell Ksetiwatch to stop the SETI@home client whenever you close Ksetiwatch by checking Stop SETI@home Client on Exit. This is useful if you are running a multi-user PC, and you don't want to hog the machine with running SETI@home clients while other users are working on it. Furthermore, there is an option to restart the SETI@home client whenever it dies unexpectedly, or in other words - crashes. If this is happening to you from time to time, it is recommended to check Keep Client Alive.

A screenshot of the add/edit dialog box: settings of the SETI@home client.
Add/edit dialog.

The priority of the client process can be adjusted by a slider. It is recommended to use a low priority for the client so as to allow other applications to use the CPU when they need it.

If you are connecting to the SETI@home server via a proxy server, you can enable the use of the proxy settings by clicking on the Proxy Server checkbox, and entering the server's URL and port in the respective edit boxes.

Command line arguments for the SETI@home client can conveniently be selected by several checkboxes. You can choose from:

#### -stop_after_process

If a work_unit.sah file is present, the client processes this work unit and stops after processing is complete. Results are not returned. If the client is started with this option, and there is a completed result.sah file present, the client will first return the results, then pick up a new work unit, process to completion, then exit.

#### -stop_after_send

Enabling this option causes the client to finish up your current work unit, and to return the result. A new work unit is `not` downloaded.

#### -email

Sends an email (to the login email address) on errors. This option is not available for all clients.

#### -graphics

Generates a data stream for the xsetiathome graphical interface (see README.xsetiathome). This option is not available for all clients.

If command line parameters are required which are not covered by the GUI elements on this page, additional arguments can be passed to the client by entering the desired options in the Command Line Arguments edit box. See the SETI@home README file for details on valid command line parameters.

You have to restart the SETI@home client to make any changes in the settings take effect.

A screenshot of the add/edit dialog box: logging of completed work units.
Add/edit dialog.

The third page, finally, is dedicated to the logging of completed work units. By default, Ksetiwatch logs completed work units automatically. If you prefer not to log completed work units, or you are doing your logging with other programs, you can switch off this feature by unchecking Enable logging of work units. Starting with version 2.2.0, there is a new feature that allows you to redirect the log files to directories other than the default folder of the location. Enable this by checking Redirect Log Files to:. Of course, you will have to enter the new log directory in the edit box below or select a directory via the browse button. This feature is especially useful if you don't have write permission in the default folder (maybe on a remote computer), or you want to collect the logs of many different SETI@home locations in one big log file.

Clicking the OK button saves all entries to disk and closes the dialog. All settings are reloaded automatically whenever you restart Ksetiwatch. Clicking Cancel discards all changes made in this dialog window.

### The Skymap Window

The skymap window provides a convenient way for you to see in which part of the sky your work units have been recorded. The work units are represented by circle markers which are painted in the color you have chosen for the respective SETI@home location. The appearance can be customized via a right-click popup menu. You have the following options:

Clear

  Removes all WU markers from the skymap window.

Show Text

  Each marker can be decorated with some text explaining when the corresponding work unit was recorded, and which SETI@home location it belongs to.

Small Marker

  Draw small-sized markers.

Normal Marker

  Draw markers in normal size.

Large Marker

  Draw large markers.

Small Marker

  Markers can be filled for better visibility.

As an additional bonus, the telescope path can be inspected for all work units that are actively processed. The telescope path illustrates the route the telescope has taken when it scanned the sky to acquire the data for a particular work unit. To open the graph window simply click on the respective WU marker. The mouse cursor shape changes to a 'pointing hand' when moved over such a WU marker, so as to indicate that telescope path information is available. Please note that for already processed work units no such window can be displayed, as the corresponding sky coordinates are not logged.

### The Gaussian, Pulse, and Triplet Windows

SETI@home clients version 2.0 or higher provide more detailed information on the signals found, thus allowing a graphical representation of the data. Three different kind of signals can be shown:

#### Gaussians

Experimental data is drawn in red, whereas fit results are depicted in white (available since version 2.0 of the SETI@home client).

#### Pulses

Pulse graphs are drawn in the standard way the GUI SETI@home clients draw them. To illustrate the periodicity of the pulses, the pulse profile is displayed twice (available since version 3.0 of the SETI@home client).

#### Triplets

Again, triplet graphs look very similar to that of the GUI SETI@home clients. Three little green markers show the position of the triplet (available since version 3.0 of the SETI@home client).

The appearance of the graphs can be customized via a right-click popup menu. You have the following options:

Bar Chart

  This is the way the GUI SETI@home clients draw the experimental data (not available for pulses and triplets).

Scatter Chart

  An alternative way to display the experimental data. Data is depicted by markers and connecting lines (not available for pulses and triplets).

Style

  Here you can customize the scatter chart. You can decide whether to draw markers, connecting lines, or both (not available for pulses and triplets).

Show Info

  Prints the name of the work unit and the numerical parameters in the window.

Text Position

  The info text might interfer with the curves. Select here the preferred position, top-left or top-right.

Save Gaussian...

  Saves the current Gaussian graph to disk. Only the PNG file format is supported.

## Questions and Answers

&reporting.bugs; &updating.documentation;

When I start Ksetiwatch it doesn't show me anything.

Ksetiwatch cannot actively search for SETI@home locations on your computer. Instead, you have to let Ksetiwatch know where you have stored your SETI@home client. See here for details.

When trying to start a client via Ksetiwatch the status first shows "Running", but switches back to "Stop" after some time. What happened?

This indicates that Ksetiwatch wasn't able to start the SETI@home client. Most probably you don't have the permission execute the client.

Sometimes Ksetiwatch tells me that the client is still running, although the work unit has been completed, and no client task can be found in the process table. How is this possible?

This seems to be a bug on the client's side. Obviously the SETI@home client sometimes fails to write the `result.sah' file after it has finished a work unit. Just restart Ksetiwatch and the SETI@home client, and everything should be ok again.

Ksetiwatch crashes when I try to start the program, or when I click on the little Ksetiwatch icon in the taskbar.

This is most probably due to a buggy portable network graphics (png) system library installed on your system. Please upgrade your png library to the most recent version.

Why are all icons missing (display shows "?"), and why can't I open the skymap?

There can be several reasons. If you installed Ksetiwatch via a binary RPM package, you might have used a package that wasn't built for your distribution. This usually leads to image files ending up in directories where Ksetiwatch cannot find them. Please ask the vendor of your distribution if he can provide binary packages of Ksetiwatch. Alternatively, check out rpmfind.net to see whether somebody else has already built a binary package matching your system.

If you compiled from source, you probably forgot to specify the correct path to your KDE installation during the configure process. Please add the '--prefix=/path/to/kde' command line option when doing './configure'. There are several threads related to this problem in the Ksetiwatch Help forum at SourceForge, for example this or this.

I'm using RedHat 7.x with the gcc 2.96 compiler, and my self-compiled version of Ksetiwatch crashes right after startup. What happens here?

The binary code produced by gcc 2.96 is incompatible to the latest official releases of the GNU compiler (2.95.2 or 2.95.3). As a work-around, recompile Ksetiwatch with --enable debug (./configure --enable-debug). In addition, visit the RedHat website and grab the latest revision of gcc 2.96, which hopefully fixes the abovementioned incompatibilities.

## Credits and License

Ksetiwatch

Program copyright 1999-2001, 2002 Gordon Machel gmachel@users.sourceforge.net

Documentation copyright 2000-2001, 2002 Gordon Machel gmachel@users.sourceforge.net

&underFDL;

&underGPL;

## Installation

### How to obtain Ksetiwatch

You will find the most up-to-date version and new information about this program at the Ksetiwatch homepage: http://ksetiwatch.sourceforge.net.

### Requirements

This version of Ksetiwatch is designed for KDE 2.x and Qt 2.2.x. Additionally, you will need SETI@home 2.0 or higher to make full use of this program. Beginning with Ksetiwatch 2.1.0, clients with version number 1.x are not supported any more (this is not a problem, of course, since only the latest version of the client (3.03) is allowed to be used) . You can get the SETI@home client at the SETI@home web site.

You can find a list of changes at http://ksetiwatch.sourceforge.net/ChangeLog.

### Compilation and installation

In order to compile and install Ksetiwatch on your system, type the following in the base directory of the Ksetiwatch distribution:

    % ./configure
    % make
    % make install

Since Ksetiwatch uses autoconf and automake you should not have trouble compiling it. Should you run into problems please report them to the author at gmachel@users.sourceforge.net, or have a look at the Ksetiwatch download page, where more information can be found. In addition, there is a discussion forum and a help forum at Sourceforge where the author or other users will do their best to help you.

### Configuration

Please read the Getting Started chapter first if you plan to run the SETI@home client for the first time.