Bitcoin Forum

Hi all

What can I expect by using bitcoin-qt for mining? Is it possible? I think I just need to start it with -gen option, is it that simple?

Thanks

Of course it is possible, but...

What? About what option are you speaking about?

To solo mine (bad idea anyway lol) you need to run qt as server

Yes, but it only uses your CPU, not your graphics card, and is therefore completely useless (which is why the option was removed from the GUI). It will take you many years or even decades to find a block this way, if ever. If you actually hope to ever make even a small amount of bitcoins, download a real miner such as cgminer and join a pool.

He's talking about Bitcoin-Qt's rarely-used (and for good reason) built-in miner. Running as a server is not required when mining this way, though it is an astoundingly bad idea.

It was removed more than a year ago if i remember well.

You remember incorrectly. Only the option in the GUI was removed, due to its uselessness. The miner is still present, presumably for the sake of being a complete implementation of everything needed to run the Bitcoin network, and can be invoked by starting Bitcoin-Qt or bitcoind with the gen option (either as a command line argument or in the configuration file), or with the RPC command setgenerate true (and setgenerate false stops mining, of course).

I have version v0.7.2.0-g32a928e-beta and -gen option seems to be there.

I will try it, just to see if I'm lucky, but many thanks for the comments about the very very low probability.

Which tool would you recommend for solo mining in Linux (nVidia card)?

I just want to give it some use, as the computer is always switched on for other tasks.

I want to test solo to get the feel of it before considering joining a pool. I want to learn about bitcoin, not just to make BTCs with it.

Many thanks

try mining on the testnet instead then, at least you could see some results that way.

Hi koin

Many thanks, but question still is which tool should I use for GPU solo mining in Linux?

I'll test it in the testnet as you suggest  :)

here:

You are right Foxpup!

Envite, note that the built-in miner is a CPU miner, nothing more. You cannot GPU mine with it. So, get cgminer like koin said.

Thanks Gabi and koin

I see there "cgminer.exe". That indicates a Windows program. Is there a cgminer for Linux?

Yes. (https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer)

I have downloaded, compiled and installed it, but when running it it asked for pool username and password. Can it be used for solo?

Please google for more information.

Solomining BTC? What hardware do you have?