We’ve always said that Salad Chefs can do anything—and our upcoming Salad jobs will put the proof in the pudding! Starting today, eligible Chefs can get set up to Chop all sorts of advanced computing tasks in virtual environments on their home PCs.
Container Workloads
Limited numbers of container workloads are now live in the Kitchen. Our first new Salad jobs involve distributed analysis of publicly available web metadata, but we’ll continue to add new workloads as more compute applications are confirmed stable for release.
During this early-access testing phase, eligible Chefs can enable the Container Environments feature in Salad to earn up to $1.00 SB per day just by Chopping simulated workloads that help us test the network! To get started, please check your eligibility and complete the setup steps below.
About Containers
Containerization makes it possible to execute computer applications on almost any hardware—including the stalwart rig of a Salad Chef. Read about containerization.
Eligibility Requirements
For security and performance reasons, Salad can only deploy container workloads to compatible machines running Windows 11 or a recent Windows 10 distribution (Version 1903, Build 18362 or later). No other operating systems are supported at this time.
If your machine supports the necessary virtualization features, you should see a prompt to automatically update Salad and configure a container environment within the app. We encourage you to opt in early and Chop often to improve your chances of workload selection.
Getting Set Up
The latest version of Salad features a quick-start guide to help you configure a container environment on your home PC. To set up a Salad Container Environment, simply:
- Update to the latest version of Salad.
- Enable Container Environments from the Salad Settings menu.
- Enable CPU Sharing from the Salad “Performance” tab.*
Many modern PCs support hardware virtualization by default. Though Salad is designed to detect this setting during the automatic setup process, some Chefs may be required to manually enable virtualization support.
*All currently available container workloads require minimal access to CPU resources. Sharing GPU resources and bandwidth will set you up to receive more complex container workloads later on, but it is not required to participate during the early-access testing phase. We recommend sharing multiple compute resources and enabling Auto Start to maximize your earning opportunities.
How Selection Works
During the next few weeks, we’ll be making continuous updates to Salad’s workload-distribution systems and adjusting the way they prioritize different hardware configurations, regions, and machine capabilities. These trials will help us prep the Kitchen for additional job types in the near future.
Completing the above setup steps will ensure that your PC is eligible to receive container workloads, but we unfortunately cannot guarantee that your machine will be able to run all currently available container workloads.
Due to the inherently varied nature of containerized applications, our systems may also need to consider relevant factors such as typical machine uptime, connection quality, or available processing resources when assigning jobs. In order to monitor network stability and ensure a consistent earnings experience for everyone participating, Salad will automatically assign jobs to compatible machines with the best available configurations.
New Workloads Coming Soon
We’re hard at work designing systems and utilities to bring new kinds of container workloads to the Kitchen. Here are just a few of the applications we’re exploring for future Salad updates:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Modeling: Training sophisticated AI models often requires networked clusters of machines that can perform 3D-accelerated GPU processing. Thanks to Salad Container Engine, your idle rig could soon put its brawny brains to use as part of a global neural network! Wrap your head around AI modeling in our feature on distributed data parallel (DDP) applications.
- Distributed Graphics Rendering: Creating cutting-edge VFX and animations takes serious artistic chops, patience, and intensive computer processes. During a phase known as rendering, one or more graphics cards must perform computations to apply textures and lighting down the last pixel. Your rig could help speed up the process as part of an impromptu render farm.
- P2P & Cloud Gaming: We’re actively seeking partnerships with gaming studios and distribution platforms so that our Chefs can support fellow gamers from their idle PCs. One day soon, you could share bandwidth or processing to spin up new servers, crush latency for the Doomslayer down the block, or fluff up somebody’s next cloud-streamed questing sesh.
- Public Data Analysis: Data-collection applications analyze public web directories and metadata in order to improve search engines, provide more relevant marketing, and spoof-proof the Internet. These workloads help verify the authenticity of similar web pages, protect intellectual property, and prevent malicious actors from impersonating other domains.
We’ll have more info to share before the year is out! In the meantime, feel free to jump into our official Discord server to ask any questions, and stay tuned for updates on our Community News page and social media channels (see links in the footer of this page).
Long Live the Kitchen!
In four years, the Salad community has gone from a motley band of cheevo hunters to a worldwide phenomenon. We recently raised $17M to decentralized the cloud and help to restore the P2P foundations of the web. Your continued support is the engine that keeps us going.
Our whole team is ecstatic to share this milestone with the Salad Chefs! It’s certainly been a long time coming, but we hope that the extra time and attention baked into this rollout will ensure a smooth, safe, and lucrative experience for everyone in years to come.
As emissaries of the Kitchen, it’s our responsibility to help Chefs make informed decisions about how to use Salad in their daily lives. For technical information and additional details to consider before configuring your container environment, please visit Container Workloads and Your PC.
