Home Made Cryptocurrency Mining Rig – Part 5: Software configuration and mining

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Operating System (OS)

You have the choice between Windows and Linux. Personally, I have chosen Linux Ubuntu. It is very light, reliable and very easy to use. To perform the miner installation, it is obvious to copy/paste the codes in command line terminal. By the way, your rig will most likely be only dedicated to mining operation. It limits a lot the Installation setting time.

Ubuntu

A new Ubuntu version is released every 6 months. The version number corresponds to its release year.month. I recommend to use a LTS (Long Term Support) version. They are 2 pending at that moment :

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr)
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus)

For better stability, I am currently using 14.04.02 LTS because most of the miner softwares have been released and optimized for this version. Technical Support of 14.04 LTS version will end in April 2019. All security updates will be available during all this period.

Ubuntu installation and configuration

Download the “64-bit PC (AMD64) desktop image” in ISO format. then create a USB Boot key with that file. This kind of usb key can be created by using an application like UNetbootin for instance.

Plug the USB key, then boot your Computer. Make sure in BIOS, USB is set at boot device before the hard drive. Then you just have to answer the questions. For more information you can see the official Tutorial from Ubuntu developers.

When the installation is complete, I recommend to install the following packets. First, launch a terminal (CTRL + F2) and put the terminal icon on the quick launch bar, you will use it all the time.

Let’s first install ethereum and the gnome classic Desktop

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ethereum/ethereum
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cpp-ethereum gnome-session-flashback
sudo reboot

at next session, select Gnome Classic Flashback Metacity before entering your password

GPU driver installation

Here comes the reason why it is not recommended to mix GPU model. I recommend you to select all your GPU card on the same “family” (see GPU hardware section). Download the appropriate driver (64 bits) from AMD GPU Drivers & Software Portal. Follow the installation guide. Then initiate the configuration and list the Cards with these 2 command lines :

sudo aticonfig --adapter=all --initial
sudo aticonfig --list-adapters

You should be able to see the list of all your Graphic cards. You can now start mining.

(Pool) Mining

From my experience, you’ll get better results by mining on a pool than alone/solo. The pools I recommend are Ethermine , Dwarfpool. All pools allows you to download their miner software. For Ether mining, you can use the one you already have installed ethminer or use the one from the pool. But the one you have install will always be updated by Ubuntu because you have installed it from the Ethereum repository.

Verify all your cards can bee seen by Ethminer and that their available memory CL_DEVICE_MAX_MEM_ALLOC_SIZE is higher than 2Gb.

ethminer --list-devices

If not the case, increase the GPU memory size by typing

export GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR=0
export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1
export GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE=100
export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
export GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
ethminer --list-devices

It should return better results. Physically remove all your GPU with CL_DEVICE_MAX_MEM_ALLOC_SIZE lower than 2Gb, you’ll have mining issues because the DAG file is too big and will not be able to be copied into these GPU memory’s.

Using Ethermine is very easy. Follow their setting page. Personally i use one of these commands:

sudo ./qtminer.sh -s eu1.ethermine.org:4444 -u 0x0c4ea1afb049245f1a78c076f68b8f7f16f7ae49.miner -G

ethminer -F http://eu1.ethermine.org:5555/0x0c4ea1afb049245f1a78c076f68b8f7f16f7ae49.miner -G

ethminer --farm-recheck 200 -G -S eu1.ethermine.org:4444 -FS us1.ethermine.org:4444 -O 0x0c4ea1afb049245f1a78c076f68b8f7f16f7ae49.miner

ethminer -F http://eu1.ethermine.org:5555/0x0c4ea1afb049245f1a78c076f68b8f7f16f7ae49.miner -G --farm-recheck 775 --cl-global-work 32768 --cl-local-work 256 -t 5

Of course, adapt the command with your own Ether Wallet, miner name and preferred server location.

Other alternative : EthOS

I have recently changed from Ubuntu to EthOS. EthOS is a dedicated Linux distribution for Ether or zcash Mining. It is just easier, faster and so nice to use and monitor. I love that distro !

also, switching from ether mining to zcash mining or switching AMD drivers are very easy operations.

The distro has already all drivers up-to-date, and has a configured SSH. All monitoring information are sent to EthOS server. you can connect to your personal link to get access to your last 5 seconds data. Just So Nice !

I now use the Juice SSH App on my tablet to drive and monitor my rig. I can see more detailed data, shutdown or reboot the rig. The commands i use the most are :

to shutdown the rig :

shutdown -h now

to reboot the rig:

r

to see live mining data for each individual GPU (where x = the GPU number starting by 0)

show miner x

Now you can mine and start your Cryptocurrency mining adventure…