Bitcoin Forum

Title says it all, I'd rather not do Win10 mining if I can get around it.  For the primary reasons of Win10 isnt slimmed down, has a lot of overhead and the remote management seems like it would be a nightmare.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a proper Linux OS for mining Nvidia cards?

nvOC or simplemining, ethOS with a bit of work to install drivers.

This is worth a look also, just install EWBF miner:

https://github.com/Cyclenerd/ethereum_nvidia_miner

For a non-mining-specific distribution, Ubuntu and it's close varients like Xubuntu get the most support.

 I'm pretty sure most or all of the "mining-specific" distributions are Ubuntu based.

Yeah, ubuntu is best way to go.

While I can respect your opinion as to why you don't want to use Win 10, what does overhead in the OS have to do with mining performance?  I can tell you from experience that it has no effect.  Many of your better tools are on Windows, and  remote management is a simple checkbox in the System control panel... takes 30 seconds to enable RDP.

nvOC.

PiMP actually has a solid nvidia mining solution. I run it on multiple rigs and it is stable and functional.

 Afterburner definitely blows away the available LINUX tools for overclock and fan management - but LINUX is a ton more stable than Windows.
 I've yet to have a windows-based mining machine go A month (more commonly a couple weeks or less) without a hang or a reboot, my LINUX machines routinely go for months if I don't lose power or have to move them.

 I don't DO remote management so can't speak to either side of the question there.

Tools (afterburner, precision, gpu-z, etc.) are better in Windows, so if you're not good figuring things out in Linux, it might be better for you to pay for Windows license and go that route.  In general, Linux is more stable, more secure, requires less fewer resources (e.g. RAM) to run well, and (particularly wrt Win10) much better for privacy.

If you're doing BIOS mods on AMD cards, then the tools are also better on Windows, although that doesn't mean you also have to use Win for mining.

I run all of my mining rigs (nVidia and AMD) on Ubuntu server over PXE netboot.  I basically turn off all I/O in BIOS except for PCIe (for graphics and NIC), and run a central server (DHCP, PXE, DNS, NFS and TFTP) for the disk images.  

This saves money on drives and makes management super easy, and I can replicate changes just by copying the file system.

i use nvOC, it's simple,.stable and totally free.

The Linux and Windows kernels are equally stable.  The only thing that introduces instability is poorly written drivers or software.  Neither are Microsoft's fault.  Linux is great for single-purpose machines like miners and servers, but it's far from the "stable" fantasy that people profess.  They have poorly written drivers and software too.  In fact their driver support is usually far behind what's available for Windows.  If you like to tinker, then you can expect instability and require reboots.  If you set it and forget it... then Windows is equally as stable.

i'd go with someone like ubuntu or mint, these "mining OS" sound like a scam waiting to happen

pimpOS user here and I've used them all. You can check my farm out via my signature below. Biggest draw to me was they were first to market with Nvidia support allowing me to monitor both my AMD and Nvidia rigs on a single interface. All the other mining OS for Nvidia to me are lackluster.

Stop by the IRC channel or the Discord chat and ask some questions there as someone is always around.

www.getpimp.org

I prefer to use SSH and VNC over RDP myself, a lot of it is personal preference rather than which is 'best'

For your question : the more easier and stable configuration for nVidia mining :
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS + Claymore dual miner (ETH and others crypto) + EWBF (ZCash).
Have fun !

Agreed, personal preference can be a strong factor, but a bogus technical reason should not be a deciding factor was my point.

RDP is a really great protocol these days.  I used have a very old laptop that couldnt play any modern games.  So I built a hyper-v server core virtual machine nested on my home lab VMware server, and passed-through a physical GPU.  I then ran a nested Windows 8 virtual machine running on the hyper-v server.  Passed through a vGPU to the Win 8 VM. When you RDP to the Win 8 VM from my laptop I would be using RDP and RemoteFX technology... I could play a modern game on an old laptop instead of being chained to a desktop.  I was amazed that I could do that with 3 layers of nesting and virtualization going on.  RemoteFX is similar to Citrix's HDX or VMware's newer PCoIP technologies.  

 That is NOT true at all, unless you're working with the EXPERIMENTAL branch Linux kernels - then it's sometimes pretty close.

 I'll also point out that NVidia and even more AMD put a TON more effort into their Windows drivers than they do into their LINUX drivers, which SHOULD make them more stable.

 nvOC is Ubuntu based, I believe PIMP is as well.

You can't be serious.  The NT kernel has been rock solid since the 2003/XP days... and it was pretty darn good before then.  The modern kernels in 2012/8.1 and 2016/10 run millions of production ready hyper-v VMs globally, so it absolutely has to be rock solid.  I promise you, that Enterprises would not tolerate an OS that crashes as you make it out to be.  Have you ever used Azure?  Have you ever used 3D capable VDI instances with nvidia Grid technology?  These are demanding and taxing use-cases, and customers would not tolerate instability.

This is not speculation, this is fact.


They also experiment with drivers a lot more on the Windows platform, trying to eek out as much performance as possible so that they can pass synthetic benchmarks for reviewers.  Then they "fix" bugs in games and other video-intensive software by tweaking drivers to compensate for poor API usage by A-list gaming companies.

It's getting better for linux users, but they still get treated poorly by AMD and nvidia.

 The most stable version of Windows EVER, in my experience, was NT 3.51 SP5 - and by MY standards I don't class that as "properly stable for a server" but closer than any other Windows version since.
 NT 4 SP 6 was fairly close.
 2000 never got as stable as NT 4 but was sorta in the same ballpark eventually.
 XP ... stable ..... don't make me LAUGH. NEVER was stable enough to run a server on for anything serious, and IMO was iffy for WORKSTATION usage from a reliability standpoint.

 The "server" versions seem to have improved some vs 2k, but haven't had AS MUCH experience with those - and I STILL have never seen anything in Windows on a server manage more than months of uptime, with the exception of ONE NT 3.51 SP5 server I saw manage almost 18 months of uptime before it flaked for the first time, and never more than a year after that.

 LINUX I have owned more than a few servers that went 15+ YEARS of "no downtime except for hardware failure, power outage longer than the UPS battery could last, or had to shut them down to move them" and more than a few that had 4+ YEARS of continuous uptime between moves/power outages of excessive length.
 One place I worked had a LINUX file server that had not been rebooted in almost 10 YEARS while I was working there (NCS had both a UPS setup AND a genset that interfaces with the UPS for longer outages when I was working there).

 On PRODUCTION controlling computers, Windows is a rarity IME - and ALWAYS had issues with low reliability where it WAS used as anything other than a "monitor what the dedicated hardware doing the ACTUAL WORK is doing" interface or as a "terminal to talk to the mainframe/server that's doing the ACTUAL work".

 Had one place replaced a QNX box with a Windows-based "upgrade system" from the same company - and after 2 months of nothing but problems and frequent downtime that was costing quite a bit of productivity, along with *3* visits from a FACTORY TECH to try to make it work right, the company put the QNX box BACK in place because it WORKED - despite being 10 year older hardware it worked FASTER AND MORE RELIABLY than the Windows-based machine that was supposed to be an UPGRADE.

 And yes, far too many "Enterprises" know that Windows is going to crash on them occasionally, and have work-arounds in place for when it does so - or they move their servers to a LINUX (or in some cases back in the day a UNIX) solution they can count on to just keep going and going and going and going....

 There's a reason the MAJORITY of web servers run on LINUX and have done so for a couple decades or so (BSD was the leader before that, in it's various flavors, after taking over from VMS).
 The only reason Windows is even in that competition is too many IT shops have lots of Windows experience but NO LINUX experience at all, and many other IT shops don't believe you CAN "mix and match" successfully.

 Hint - do you think Google runs on a Microsoft solution?
 Answer - no, they run their servers on their own customized LINUX version, and their standard in-house desktop OS is a modification of Ubuntu LINUX.

 This is not speculation, this is FACT from having worked with the stuff for decades as a tech and software tester.



 Have you ever been in one of the Azure server centers?
 I have - Quincy is quite close to where I live and I know a couple of the techs that work there.
 Azure as a platform is reliable - but only because it's designed for massive redundancy and fast fail-over when an individual server flakes out - and that's straight from techs that WORK with the infrastructure behind Azure.

 MOSIX based platforms can easily match the reliability of Azure.

You do know that all Windows kernels (except for the Win95/98/ME branch) derive from the original NT kernels, right?  Stability has only gotten better.  And using XP as a "server" is still a perfectly valid solution for many small businesses.  The 2003 kernel is rock-solid if it's not used as a workstation.



Then I think you are exaggerating.  Where I work currently, we have still have an old ERP system that runs on Win 2000.  It just runs.  The only time we have to reboot it is if we have a full data-center outage.



Yep, and there are plenty of examples of Windows servers doing the same.  Single-function servers that are never tweaked or experimented on will run until the power is shut off.  That's the same with linux or windows.



Well, now you are talking about a different class of compute.  I agree that mainframes are a different breed and you won't find much windows there... the hardware architecture doesn't support it. :P



Yes, I like QNX, we used it as the base OS for our video content server when I worked for a company back in the late 90's.  We sold our systems to hotels and to large telecom giants in Asia to deliver MPEG2 video to set top boxes for video on demand applications.  The reason we used QNX was for it's real-time OS abilities, as a blip in MPEG2 video was worth the cost of not having the servers bog down due overloading.  We used Solaris for the controllers, a big reason was because that's what the programmers were comfortable with.  We had NT controllers in the lab that ran with the exact same reliability.  We could charge a lot more for the Solaris boxes, so it became a business decision to do so.



I'm not here to bash linux.  It's rock solid too.  Any enterprise worth their mettle will have contingency plans, no matter the OS.



No, the reason is because it's hard to get paid-for support for linux as compared to windows.  It's gotten better over the last 10 years, but to suggest that no enterprise ever needs help with a linux based system due to bugs or instability is just fallacy.

Web servers are run on linux based systems due to market momentum.  The most popular web server software and tools started there... just like the majority of desktops run windows due to market momentum.



Well that's a specious argument... why would they?  Google doesn't want to pay their competitor for licenses or support.



I tend to disagree with your argument.



Yes, I've toured the San Antonio location to see whether their vGPU solutions could work properly for our CAD/CAM related needs.  We toured SpaceX and Lockheed Martin to see how they are using vGPU/VDI solutions to better equip their engineers.  I've also toured a Google data center in North Carolina and an AWS facilty in Virgina.  I do this for a living.



In the 3 years that we've been using Azure based servers, we've never had to reboot a server due to "instability".  That's the point.  Windows as a server is rock-solid reliable.

Any argument to the contrary is just old-school projecting.



No doubt.  That was never the question for discussion.

and you are going to create a guide for all of us :D ?
I've used pxe boot at work, but never thought about it for something like this. I've been using simplemining for mining eth, but the nvidia rig is not working for zcash (1070)

If you want a good NVIDIA distro for mining I would tell you to take a look at PiMP. I have it on a large number of rigs and it is constantly being updated and worked on. So far it is the most robust solution I have found for NVIDIA mining.