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MinePeon BeagleBone Black Alpha

MinePeon has been ported!  For now it is just for the BeagleBone Black ( http://beagleboard.org/Products/BeagleBone%20Black ) and it is very Alpha but it appairs very stable.

I have made up a few quick install instructions below and I welcome everyone who wants to test.  I have also made up a sub board on the MinePeon forums (http://minepeon.com/forums/)  for bug reports etc.

Recommended before you start;-

Update your BeagleBone Black to the latest Angstrom with the following link.  This is not totally necessary but some old versions required you to push the boot button on the board while booting from the SD card.  Newer versions allow you to just put the SD card in and it will boot from that by default.

http://beagleboard.org/Getting%20Started#update

Install Instructions

1. Download the image MinePeon-0.2.4.6-BeagleBoneBlack-Alpha.img from;-

http://sourceforge.net/projects/minepeon/files/release/

2. Write the image to a SD card (minimum 2GB).  You can use the instructions here for that;-

http://minepeon.com/index.php/Troubleshooting#How_to_write_MinePeon_to_SD

3. Insert your SD card into your BeagleBone Black, plug in your hubs/miners and power on.

4. Everything else should be just like the Raspberry Pi.

5. Report your findings on the MinePeon forums (http://minepeon.com/forums/)!

Neil

Only have 2 USB sticks left so haven't played to much.  Systems been up 12 hours mining all 5GH/s but it's going to the donate :)

If the gridseed stuff works out over here I would def. be happy.  Had to run a few ./configure, etc. so much faster.

Goign to see how long it stays stable.  Running the CGminer Gridseed build for scrypt only.  It would lock up after 5 minutes or so on my PI.  Killed the default miner to test and enabled API.  It's at 900MHz so there is a few hardware errors.

https://i.imgur.com/UhdhFbP.jpg

Good to see!

I will be compiling some grindseed specific stuff soon as well, you should see the drivers show up on the settings page some time soon.

Neil

Awesome.  I had a Pi running it with just a Wheezy build so ready for each way with MinePeon! ;)

I've had better luck with bfgminer controlling Gridseeds...4+ days so far on a Raspberry Pi that also runs Bitfury & BFL mining gear (one process each for SHA-256 & scrypt mining).  You'll probably need to make sure your whole system is up to date before you build it:

After using the beagle bone, you realize just how slow the raspberry pi is... this thing blazes through the updates!

Black Alpha has been running stable for the past 2 days!

Any reason we shouldn't flash this to the emmc?

None whatsoever (In theory).  It is just I have not tested it all that well.

The theory is if you lean out the partitions on the MMC (/dev/mmcblk1p1 and /dev/mmcblk1p2) and then copy the contents on from the SD card (/dev/mmcblk0p1 /dev/mmcblk0p2), pull the SD card out and boot you are done!

There are a few gotcha's to do with uBoot though but I am working through those to get it 100%.  Once I have done that I will add it to the menu and you will be able to automate it.

Neil

Hi there MineForeman.
Any updates on this that would take this out of the Alpha stage for the BeagleBone black or am I just not up to date? I'm looking to buy a BeagleBone Black rev. C since I'm not happy with the Raspberry Pi (rev B) SOC.  
However, I love the Minepeon os compilation you put out but on the RPi I feel it could be better & hoping this is the case on the BeagleBone black.
Does it work with the GridSeed G-blades as of yet?
This last question also includes the Minepoeon OS on the RPi platform.
Thanks.

As always I'm a donator via my RPi (when it's not freezing up).

Is thread dead?

Sorry, not dead, I have just been overloaded.

I am gearing up for the 0.3.0 releases and that is taking most of my time.  You are right though the BBB blows away the Pi in just about every category (if not every).  The next realises are a large overhaul, sorry I am not working quicker, I still need my real job so I can eat ;) .

Neil

Thanks.

Woo-hoo!!!! 0.3.0 coming to a BBB near U!!!
Go neil, Go Neil, Go Neil... (Y'all get the drift). 

Hi MineForeman (Neil).

I just received my new BBB Rev. C.  I've burned the new minepeon for BBB image on to two new SD cards.  My BBB will not boot from the SD cards.  But if I allow it to boot after pulling the SD cards all is ok.  Could the image be corrupted or sumtin?
H-E-L-P???  :(

One thing I have noticed with the BBB is that the USB power port does not supply enough power.  Scratch around and see if you can find a 5v power supply for it and see if it makes a difference (I use an old 5v 2.1 amp power supply that came with a USB hub).

Neil

Actually, that's exactly what I got with the Beaglebone Black kit that I purchased, a 5V, 2.1, 10W power supply.

With the newly flashed minepeon image burned on to the SD card I wonder if I have to hold down the user boot button, (the one next to the larger USB port), until just two of the blue LEDs light up. This is going to suck if this the case. This will prove to be too tedious for me.

You only have to hold the boot button if your using a VERY OLD version of the BBB software.  Go to their website and download the latest just in case.

Neil

Hi Neil.

Thanks for your previous responses. They helped.

Well, I got my newly received Beaglebone Black Rev. C to boot from the SD card.  
Minepeon 0.2.4.6Alpha is configured with the same pools I run with the Raspberry Pi version of Minepeon.  
The two Gridseeds G-blades I have aren't mining.  I know there's something else but I can't figure it out.  Is there something I have to add to the /opt/minepeon/etc/miner.conf I have to add or change?  
If so, what would that be?  

Does the BFGminer have to be upgraded to the 4.x versions that state they are Gridseed compatible?  If so, what is the command line syntax for that?  I'm not good with linux command line unless being handheld.

Thanks.



Suzukii

Hell-oooo. Anyone there?  Any help on the above?  Thanks?

Sorry, been "head down bum up" working on 0.3.0 and a few other things.  Yep, you need top upgrade bfgminer, if you look on the official forums there is plenty of help there;-

http://minepeon.com/forums/

Neil

I hear ya.
I'm learning to be a father myself. Between a puking 1 year old & violent poo adventures & a 12-14hour job it leaves little time for anything else.

Anywhoo,
I searched on the minepeon forum & all I found was cryptic stuff that I couldn't decipher.
I'm not Linux savvy. I tried the, pacman -Syu, & git pull commands that I can successfully execute on my Raspberry Pi running Minepeon don't work on the BBB.

I'll check again.

Hi Neil. I noticed that posting queries on that forum gets me no responses. Either very few people are attempting to use Minepeon on the BeagleBone Black rev. C or they just aren't interested in the questions.

Anywhoo, sorry to keep irritating you with all the work you have in front of ya.
I have three questions:

(1) I searched on the forum but couldn't find anything pertaining to BFgminer updating process in Minepeon/Arch linux,'s text user interface. All I found was the following:
"CD /opt/Minepeon/", then "git pull".
Is that the command that should update the bfgminer along with others wares that might be outdated?
If so, this doesn't work for me now after I ran this same command the first time a few days ago before I realized that bfgminer may need to be updated.  I know this command works on the Minepeon version running on my Raspberry Pi model B. Maybe my Alpha version broke during the first & last got pull on the Beaglebone Black Rev C.?

(2) When I get home should I even reburn the image onto a new SD card, start over & see if I can do a git pull with a fresh copy?

(3) I noticed that when I change from bfgminer to cgminer or vice versa on the BBB Minepeon Alpha version I lose my pool settings. Is this supposed to happen?

Any other suggestions?  Thanks.

Apologias, I will try to be more attentive.

I will do an update this weekend so you can just pull the newer versions of the miners.  I still have a bit of a way to go with 0.3.0.

Neil

Kewl beans.

Hi Mineforeman.

Can you tell me why I get this error from the Minepeon "f" option in the 0.2.4.6 Alpha version?  I'm trying to get this working with my two Gridseed G-blades until you can release the next phase.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t264/suzukii69/Tech%20Support%20Pix/Minepeonv0246forBBBwontupdateusinggitpull.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/suzukii69/media/Tech%20Support%20Pix/Minepeonv0246forBBBwontupdateusinggitpull.jpg.html)




Thanks?

It was only a alpha test and I did not connect it up to an actual repo.  I intended to fix that today but I plugged in my SD card reader and *poof* the magic smoke came out!

Looks like both SD card, Reader and port are gonners....  I have been hitting them quite hard recently.  I will pop into town and get some parts ;)


Neil

Wow.  Too bad.  This sux for us both.  Read my PM to ya.

Hi MineForeman.
How's it going?  You get these replaced yet?

Anxiously awaiting the Beaglebone Black version update.

Bump.  Any progress?  ...at least got to play with some firewerx???

If you want I will try to bump out an image tonight.  I will keep it only here and it is an alpha alpha and some things don't work (it mines great though).

Neil

Sure. I'll byte.
I'm currently Gridseed G-blade mining for LiteCoin successfully with 7 of them on my raspberry pi, problem free, for about 1 week now. But I'd love to be able to do this on the BBB.

The only thing I hate is that I can't burn the Minepeon image onto the BBB's EMMC.
I tried following the procedure they list on the BBB Website for copying other OS' over to EMMC & for some reason it only takes part of the Minepeon Alpha image.
After the BBB seems like it has completed the copying image over to EMMC process, the BBB's LED's stop flashing (this takes about 40 minutes), then the BBB starts the boot process, shows part of the Minepeon bootup screen, stops, & then continues to boot the built-in Debian OS instead.

OK, this is bleeding edge stuff, but the lates build just finished uploading.  If you go to;-

http://minepeon.com/img/testing/

You should see a gzip'ed time stamped image that came directly out of the "make bbb" of the new build system.

It has the latest miner versions etc but it is not totally complete so a few (non mining related) things don't work.  If some of the brave people can download it and see how it runs that would be great.  Remember, this is a test alpha image, feedback would be great.

Neil

I hear you.  EMMC Burning is very much at the top of the list with the new build process.  Getting the thing to work reliably though supersedes EMMC though (not much point in putting an nonworking image on the EMMC after all).

I will make a few scripts tonight and test some stuff.  Last thing I want to do is dork your BBB ;) .

Neil

Kewlz.  8) Just got home & to my surprise (cracked a smile) I read the email & am now D/Ling it now.

Tell me how you get on.   This image was just spat out of the build system.

What do you think of the size by the way?  And yep, everything is still on there.

Neil

 :(

Bad mews.
I can't even get the BBB to boot from a newly opened SD card with the Alpha alpha version of Minepeon now after writing the image to the SD card.  
I tried another SD card & still a no go.  The BBB won't see it.
I can, however boot from the previous 2.4.6 Alpha image.  Just to test the new SD card I burned the prev. 2.4.6 Alpha on to it & the BBB boots from it when i hold down the USER/BOOT button in all instances, as one would when wanting to boot from the SD card (which sucks!!!!).

Hmmmm, I am away from my BBB so I cannot test right now.   

Does anything come up on the console?  (i.e. serial cable or monitor plugged in)

Neil

Nothing at all. If I remove either of the two SD cards I put the image onto the BBB doesn't do anything.  If I power it down & backup with any other SD card regardless of what OS I have on them, including the previous 2.4.6 Alpha image, the BBB boots up fine.
The BBB will even boot up with nothing in the SD card into the preloaded & built-in Debian OS with no problem.
Hmmm.

-- Suzukii.

Wired...  nothing at all?  Not even a message that its not going to do anything?

I just put it onto a card and poped it into a BBB and bang, it boots.  This need further investigation.

Neil

Would the revision of rhe BBB make a diff?
Mine is a revision C.
I don't understand why the other OS' and the previous version of minepeon, which I've re-burned on to three diff. SD cards, are able to boot up with the User/boot button.

It shouldent.

Just to make sure... you have a moinitor or a serial cabvle pluged in and there is ABSOLUTLY NOTHING on the screen?

It seems to indicate some sort of hardware failure ... but it works with another OS image is on the same SD card..

Neil

P.S. There is another image up there now.. same thing with last nights minor improvements.

Hi Neil.
Yup, with a monitor. 
I'll try the new image. I only SSH in once I know it's working & booted the first few times, then I let my wife have her monitor back.  eh-eh. Thanks.

Hi Neil.
Does this image contain the same filename as the one I downloaded on Wednesday night?
The one up there now, today being Thursday night, has the same file name: MPBBB20140710.img.gz

Also, just to verify that my BBB will boot from anything else I've thrown on to a SD card I just downloaded the latest version of Armstrong, burned it to an SD which I had minepeon Alpha on & the BBB booted right off of it.  
Now I'm burning that into the BBB's EMMC.



UPDATED at 12:07AM (Eastern/Standard Time):
I just burned the image onto both a 16GB & a 32GB SD card.  Nothing happens.  The BBB will not look at the Minepeon SD card & won't boot with the Minepeon SD card inserted.  If I remove it & restart the BBB without it boots into Armstrong.

Would the size of the SD card matter?  I'm switching back & forth from 16GB & 32GB cards.
I'm going to try minepeon on an 8GB.  That's all I have left in small sizes.



UPDATED at 12:24AM (Eastern/Standard Time):

The 8GB SD card didn't help.
I'm still able to boot from the old alpha version from weeks ago. Even after re-imaging it onto these same new 8GB, 16Gb & 32GB SD Cards. I don't mind doing it because it only takes about 45 secs to re-image each SD Card due to the compact size of Minepeon.

Hmmm.

Hmmm. Indeed, something appairs to be up with the imaging process.

Hold fire for a bit while I investigate

Neil

Just to see if it's a revision issue I might go to the local store to get another BBB rev C. & a BBB rev. B which they happen to have in stock with a good return policy.

It should not actualy matter.  I have just finished testing the image (BBB and RPi) and they seem to be working on mine.  I do have a rev b for the BBB though.  I should pick up a C.

Neil

Hi Neil.

At this point I think it does make a diff.  
I just came home with a 2nd brand new BBB Rev. C.  I wrote the last image of MP for BBB (File name - MPBBB20140711.img) to a new 4GB SD card.  I got the same thing my first BBB rev.C does.  

I did try to look for a Rev. B but this is no where to be found, locally, that is.
Wow, this sux that they changed something in the boot process with their new revision C.

Dang... Looks like I need to order a C then :( .

I have to get them all the way from the US though so it takes w week or two.

Just to confirm, you get nothing at all on the console?  Even if the image was bad you should get something.

Neil

I get nothing on the monitor.  The only visual output I get are the board's LEDs'.
All of the LEDS, which are very very bright blue never light up with the latest MP BBB images you've put up.
When I have any other SD card with any of the previously mentioned OS images I get USR0 (heart beat) blinking & the USR2 (processor activity) blinking away & USR1 (micro SD card accessible/accessibility) blinking away.

Any progress with your new BBB, (if you obtained one)?

Arrived yesterday.  I have a new image ready for it (I changed from systemd to initd for init for comparisons, I am only going to get to release 0.3.0 once and I want to make sure I get things like this right).

I have not fired it up yet, I will tell you how it goes.

Neil

P.S. Has anyone else noticed that the BBB is very statically sensitive, I have blown 2 so far compared to 0 raspberrys.

Hi Neil.  How's it going on the BBB version side?  Burn up any more BBB's?

I'll share my latest experience with my BBB.
I've mishandled mine irresponsibly but it's still kicking. 
My 1 year old baby boy managed to grab my BBB when I wasn't looking, while scooting along on a carpet (major static buildup there) while sticking it in his mouth & gallons of drool all over it.  After I took it from him, (while I was in horror), I let it dry for two days & it fired right up as if nothing ever happened.

This is my BBB nightmare.


-suzukii

I am upto 3 BBB's just die...  I am beggining to not like the platform just because of that, I have a stack of Raspberry Pi's that have been going for YEARS without a single failure.

Neil

You must have some serious dry air & carpet issues to be burning thru them like that.

I hope you can push out a working copy of Minepeon for the BBB before & and if you give up on this platform.  Then my $150 (my cost for BBB, fancy case, power supply & SD cards) on this platform will not have been a total waste of $$$ for me.
But if you must, I'll understand.

I have a new one now, I am just working through a few issues that the Rev C introduced (it refuses to boot without a uEnv.txt file... it has something to do with the copy of debian that they come pre-installed with) and I will get another image out.

Neil

That is good news, Neil.

Hi MineForeman.
Any updates for Minepeon on the BBB platform or is this dead in the waters?

Thanks.

Far from it... I am spending the day bashing my head against it ;) !  

Grab a copy if you want from http://minepeon.com/img/testing/ (http://minepeon.com/img/testing/), it is fully in sync with the raspberry pi 0.3.0 PR2.

Issues I am still having with it;-

* Kernel is just not "perfect" yet.
* Debian (that comes with the Rev C) refuses to let SD card boots.

That second one really pisses me off ;) .  It is easy to get around, just boot the Debian and nuke the boot partition but I need to learn more about uBoot and how to make a proper uEnv.txt to fix it (if someone is a gun at it and wants to show me how that would be great).

If you decide to have a look, I am keen on people testing the server bit available at https://mineforeman.io/ (https://mineforeman.io/) that I put up withing the past few days.  At the moment it is fairly basic and just tells you what MinePeons are running on your network, I am just testing graphing libraries to give you some cool visuals though.  Sooner or later you will be able to set alerts from it and re-configure you devices.

As always, you can just turn it off in settings.  As always, I will be keeping it free^[1] to use as well and will be releasing the source so you can run your own miner farms.

Neil

^[1] Some things cost me extra money and I may restrict it to people that donate, for example I may have to charge for txt alerts, I cannot find a good free provider that I can use.

Hi MineForeman.
Any updates for Minepeon on the BBB platform or is this project dead in the waters?

Thanks.

...bump.

i wanna request if possible to include my miner on support list...


my miner is Scrypt Dragon LTC miner 32m

the website is :http://www.lketc.com/goods/show-641.aspx

please advice me possible ro tun my machine using this  BFGMiner

Dragon Scrypt miner 32m

 this is the actual image ofr the miner
http://www.bitxixi.com/images/upload/Image/c07c6d6939e256ef.jpg
http://www.bitxixi.com/images/upload/Image/e2e3894674e33c08.jpg
http://www.bitxixi.com/images/upload/Image/2(2).jpg

Hi MineForeman.
Seems like this is a dead thread & no support with Minepeon for the Beaglebone Black project.

Thanks.