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What is Kiwix? I looked into this fascinating software as I wanted to have a copy of the Arch Wiki on hand offline. Yes I know that you can do something from the command line but I would be happier with a program that looked like a web page if that makes sense. Arch has a kiwix-desktop application within which you can download the Arch Wiki or any of 4003 web site sections or books as they are called and view them. https://archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/kiwix-desktop/ https://github.com/kiwix/kiwix-desktop Setting up was easy. Download the kiwix-desktop then download the Arch Wiki book and you are up and running. Here is a freshly opened Kiwix. As you can see you can resize the the window to suit. I have also added a couple of extra books to kiwix. With fast stable internet kiwix may not be necessary. However if you bork your os and can not get on line or get a connection gremlin or internet outage kiwix may just save the day. You could download whatever content you fancy and turn of your router/modem for an afternoon whilst you peruse, thus saving a few shillings worth of electricity. There are other uses for kiwix and Arch has a range of kiwix programs available. These will allow you to view .zim files you have made from your own choice of web sites. I noticed that the Futurama offering at Kiwix was from 2017 so I went to the site and used Zimit to make an uptodate file. https://youzim.it/ Once the site had been zimmed I downloaded the file and tried to read it from kiwix-desktop. However it could not be read from that program. There is some information regarding this at the Zimit site. Although Arch has all the tools needed to set up a server, there is even a Docker offering I could not be bothered with all the fafff. Luckily for me though I came across this, Kiwix JS PWA This allows you to view .zim files offline in a browser. A few clicks later and I have the latest copy of the Futurama Infosphere site available for offline perusal. Using Kiwix JS PWA was just a tad glitchy to start with but it seems to have settled down and is working well. I pulled the ethernet cable from the pc to see if offline worked and it did with no problems. I could change which book/site I wanted to with no problems, going form Futurama to the Arch Wiki and back again. There is more to this tale but it will have to wait for another day.

So I decided to set up BOINC on me Arch. Of I went to the wiki and followed the instructions. Seemed simple enough. Install the boinc program. Create a boinc group. Add meself to the boinc group. The wiki gives this command which I do not fully understand. # usermod -a -G boinc $(whoami) It is the last part I do not recognise. So I used a different method. Start the boinc.service. So far so good. I checked that I had done all the initial set up, made the group,added members to the group and checked the service was running. Not being a geek I wanted to use the gui option so followed the wiki as below, $ cd ~/ $ ln -s /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg gui_rpc_auth.cfg # chmod 640 gui_rpc_auth.cfg Which does not work. It creates a symlink which does not work and you can not alter the permissions to make it work. So is the wiki is wrong or am I missing something. To get boinc working after the initial set up phase I did , # cd /var/lib/boinc # cp gui_rpc_auth.cfg /home/youruser # cd /home/youruser # chmod 440 gui_rpc_auth.cfg # ls -l gui_rpc_auth.cfg -r--r----- 1 boinc boinc 32 Jul 20 13:04 gui_rpc_auth.cfg That got me a working gui and boinc is running and producing results. I do not want boinc running at full speed or at the default of 60% so I made some changes, I also did this # systemctl enable boinc Which makes boinc run when I boot the pc. I have turned the pc of and on twice and boinc starts and runs without any intervention so it looks like I have a automatically working boinc. So I have a boinc that sort of works but I have questions. As you can see above the "gui_rpc_auth.cfg" in /var/lib/boinc is set at 600. I set the copied file in my home to 440. I could not see why the file neede to be changed so I made it read only. Does the file need to have write permissions ? Boinc starts when I boot and runs. Only for so long , every now and againg it stops and tells me "Suspended comptuer not in use" which is ridiculous as I am working on the pc. I can start it again with "systemctl start boinc" but that is not ideal. When boinc stops I have left it to see if it will restart but as far as I can tell it does not. What can I do to keep boinc running ? Lastly and this is not important but it is puzling. When I first got the gui up viewing the "advanced view" looking at the "disk" tab I had a graphic showing. Now the graphic has disappeared. Where has the graphic gone and can I get it back ? Any comments or help would be most welcome.