Bitcoin Forum

Hello, I like to start Bitcoin mining. For my first experiences only just for fun without any profit target.

I think that I have understand the most important basics of mining. I read all relevant articles about mining at bitcoin.org like https://www.bitcoinmining.com/ (https://www.bitcoinmining.com/). And I know that Bitcoin mining with Desktop PC ist not a very good method. But it should be possible. Or not?

Yesterday i tried my first steps by installing cgminer on Debian Linux. This went fine cause Debian provides a cgminer package: https://packages.debian.org/jessie/cgminer (https://packages.debian.org/jessie/cgminer)

But cgminer seems to require a special USB device. Why? Does cgminer not support mining on Desktop PC?

The next difficulty for me seems to be finding the right mining pool. I tried to use slushpool.com (http://slushpool.com) for mining with cgminer. I got a connection with cgminer to Slushpool. But in the help section of Slushpool i read that only ASIC miners are supported.

So I can say: my first try for Bitcoin mining fails.

What are possible ways for mining with a Linux Desktop PC? Or is it completely hopeless to try mining with a Desktop in these days?

CPU mining (and even GPU mining i think) has been removed from most popular mining softwares because you won't be able to mine enough satoshi's to withdraw from a pool.As soon as you fire up a sha256d CPU miner, you're losing more money in hardware and power cost than you'll ever recuperate via mining.
It's sad but true, but since ASIC's appeared on the mining landscape, the network diff skyrocketed so high that it's just not worth mining with a CPU/GPU.

This question gets asked (and answered) several times a week/month.

For example: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1783157

Please, read my replys from the link i posted, and close this topic, before dozens of people start the same old discussion all over again...

bottom line: if you want to make a profit mining BTC, you'll need a power cost of less than 7 cents/Kwu, a huge investment, knowledge, a mining room and loads of luck.
If you want to learn how to mine, you should find a CPU/GPU minable altcoin and mine it to learn the basics (without expecting profits) or invest in an older antminer, avalon, spondoolies or geccoscience USB stick (without expecting profits)...
If you have an older sha256d ASIC, and you want to learn how to solo mine, i'd suggest mining on the testnet of either bitcoin, or a sha256d altcoin. The diff on those testnets is usually a lot lower than on the main net, but not low enough to CPU mine tough.