I am well impressed with this.

I had ordered a rig with 3 6990 cards in and was putting it together. I had really come to the conclusion that nothing worked as expected with ubuntu 10.4,10.10 or 11.04, sdk 2.1,2.3, 2.4 and catalyst 11.5, because the installer on 11.3 seems faulty with certain versions of Ubuntu. I have spent several days trying to fix this. Yes, many people say blithly use sdk 2.4, they will work, but they are using catalyst 11.3 which doesnt even install... Aaagh.

This evening dramatically I had all 6 cores hashing, and the hot air was blowing round my feet like a furnace, and the Kwh meter said 1.3 Kw, and I was scp' ing  my temeperature monitor to monitor what the core temps of the cards were. Suddenly, everything suddenly went quit. There were no spinning fans any more.  Power supply had got too hot and shut down.

Of course, this is the moment where you really would rather not have a volatile file system!

Anyway, perhaps I need to remove 1 card and let the power supply breathe...

I also much appreciate this site.

Many of the inherent design decisions are just plain sensible, and so far as I can see it just works. It may (at the moment) be a bit parochial, but from small acorns grow...

Its easy to use, seems to just work, what more could you ask for?  Its way,way less hassle than Mtgox!!

What town (and country!) are you in Inaba?

Changing sdk hasnt helped me much, sdk 2.3, and 2.4 both see 1 Cayman gpu. 2.1 none at all.

This is the script I use to swop sdk's:

#!/bin/bash
sdk=/opt/ati-stream-sdk-v2.4-lnx32

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$sdk/lib/x86
cd ~/pyopencl-0.92
rm siteconf.py
./configure.py --cl-inc-dir=$sdk/include/ --cl-lib-dir=$sdk/lib/x86
make clean
make -j3
sudo make install
ls -1S $sdk/lib/x86 | head -1 > /tmp/atiocl32.icd
sudo cp /tmp/atiocl32.icd /etc/OpenCL/vendors/atiocl32.icd
rm /tmp/atiocl32.icd
grep LD_LIBRARY_PATH ~/.bashrc | grep -v ati-stream > /tmp/bashrc && cp /tmp/bashrc ~/.bashrc && rm /tmp/bashrc
echo "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$sdk/lib/x86:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" >> ~/.bashrc

I am at a similar stage to mjhorn.

I have started to focus less on the xorgfile, leaving out all bus id statements, and more on PyOpen and the sdk.

I see 1 Cayman device only.

Have moved to sdk 2.3. I still see only 1 Cayman device. For a period of 2 days I had 2 of my 3 6990's running (thats 4 devices) under 2.3. I do not seem to be able to achieve even that now.

CLinfo states there is one GPU and one CPU, effectively agreeing with poclbm.

I have become addept at changing sdk version, but I wonder if there is something missing when doing a reinstall of the sdk. This is what I do:

#!/bin/bash
rm siteconf.py
sdk=/opt/ati-stream-sdk-v2.3-lnx32

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$sdk/lib/x86
./configure.py --cl-inc-dir=$sdk/include/ --cl-lib-dir=$sdk/lib/x86
make clean
make -j3
sudo make install

And then

check that the name of the library in /etc/OpenCL/vendors/atiocl32.icd agrees

and then edit .bashrc for the sdk name which currently is

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/ati-stream-sdk-v2.3-lnx32/lib/x86/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Wondering if DISPLAY=:0 is correct.

Is also hashing at only 100 Mh/sec

Ok, it seems that it really does not like more than one BusId statement, this causes failure: X will not boot. However if the BusId is the same it does boot, but still does  gives rise to just 1 Caymen device for use by poclbm.

I think 6990 cards provide 3 devices at 3 different PCI address at boot, a VGA adapter (for use by the bios etc) , an audio adapter and an ATI GPU device. Subsequently I think they reuse the VGA graphics adapter to add the 2nd GPU, this may be quite wrong of course.

I think that X, thinking there is a VGA adapter at the 2nd location doesnt know what to do.

This translates as, its broken.

Somebody with 6990 cards working like to comment?

Alas, MOA, this resultaed in an unbootable configuration. aticonfig did find the single remaining device instance though, and the ordering of screens etc was slightly different.
Will work on reducing the screens etc to try to get bootable system as suggested.

It never did start. I edited the xorg.conf to remove the last buid statement, and the xserver came up at once.

But, like before only a single Cayman device is seen by poclbm.

Ok, changed the busid for the other one for that adapter. This time there is about 5 minutes of flashing and its clear that continuous attempts are being made to start the X server. I cannot read what flashes on the screen, it flashes thane goes black for about 3 seconds. Writing is white on black.  This time, it doent seem to be giving up, which is obviously what happened last time, but maybe it will.

So obviously last time I had the Id of the device in the adaptor I was not using.

Correction, all Busid removed except the 1st, device "PCI:19:0:0"

So heres a funny thing.

Removed all BusId instances in the xorg.conf, except the 2 for the device I was using. Rebooted all seemed the same.

But ssh *was* running, unusual. aticonfig --list-adapters sasy it cant help me unless there is an xserver. Expected, then about 2 minutes into the session,. the xserver comes up on the screen.

Now, aticonfig reports all devices, and poclbm reports a single Cayman GPU. (not a pair)

Trying to figure what this means.

minute_of_angle, I havent tried your suggestion yet, but it seems to me this type of thing may fix it so I will.

However in the meantime I have been trawling Xorg.1.log.old

Thought I was really onto something there segmentation fault and all, but turned out to be me pushing the power button to turn the machine off.

Going to try your suggestion MOA now (or should I abbreviate that to just '  ?)

Since posting this, I have realised that the strange boot method means that the xorg.conf actually being used is a much abbrievated one, without any of the GPU info in it.

So perhaps that explains that. aticonfig does not use xorg.conf so its hardly surprising it knows about the adapters but nothing else does .

So I am going to put my full xorg.conf here the one I would like to use but in fact it just crashes X or something, and see if anyone has any comments:

Section "ServerLayout"
   Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
   Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
   Screen         "aticonfig-Screen[1]-0" RightOf "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
   Screen         "aticonfig-Screen[2]-0" RightOf "aticonfig-Screen[1]-0"
   Screen         "aticonfig-Screen[3]-0" RightOf "aticonfig-Screen[2]-0"
   Screen         "aticonfig-Screen[4]-0" RightOf "aticonfig-Screen[3]-0"
   Screen         "aticonfig-Screen[5]-0" RightOf "aticonfig-Screen[4]-0"
EndSection

Section "Module"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
   Option       "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
   Option       "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
   Option       "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[1]-0"
   Option       "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
   Option       "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
   Option       "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[2]-0"
   Option       "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
   Option       "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
   Option       "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[3]-0"
   Option       "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
   Option       "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
   Option       "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[4]-0"
   Option       "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
   Option       "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
   Option       "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[5]-0"
   Option       "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
   Option       "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
   Option       "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
   Driver      "fglrx"
   BusID       "PCI:19:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[1]-0"
   Driver      "fglrx"
   BusID       "PCI:18:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[2]-0"
   Driver      "fglrx"
   BusID       "PCI:11:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[3]-0"
   Driver      "fglrx"
   BusID       "PCI:10:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[4]-0"
   Driver      "fglrx"
   BusID       "PCI:7:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[5]-0"
   Driver      "fglrx"
   BusID       "PCI:6:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
   Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
   Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
   DefaultDepth     24
   SubSection "Display"
      Viewport   0 0
      Depth     24
   EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[1]-0"
   Device     "aticonfig-Device[1]-0"
   Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[1]-0"
   DefaultDepth     24
   SubSection "Display"
      Viewport   0 0
      Depth     24
   EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[2]-0"
   Device     "aticonfig-Device[2]-0"
   Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[2]-0"
   DefaultDepth     24
   SubSection "Display"
      Viewport   0 0
      Depth     24
   EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[3]-0"
   Device     "aticonfig-Device[3]-0"
   Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[3]-0"
   DefaultDepth     24
   SubSection "Display"
      Viewport   0 0
      Depth     24
   EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[4]-0"
   Device     "aticonfig-Device[4]-0"
   Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[4]-0"
   DefaultDepth     24
   SubSection "Display"
      Viewport   0 0
      Depth     24
   EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[5]-0"
   Device     "aticonfig-Device[5]-0"
   Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[5]-0"
   DefaultDepth     24
   SubSection "Display"
      Viewport   0 0
      Depth     24
   EndSubSection
EndSection

Any suggestions on what to do with this aticonfig generated file to make it more palletable ?

I have followed these instructions and had quite a few problems (some due to the peculiariteis of ubuntu 11.04).

First problem is that after last boot, X doesnt come up and this also prevents sshd  from working. It is possible to get a working system by holding the shift key and selecting recovery and restart the x server. I presume this is caused by some incompatibility between Ubuntu 11.04 and the xorg.conf generated by ati-config.

I have not solved this yet.

Next problem is as I am using 6990's I need sdk 2.4, but gave an error when poclbm was run, it is necessary to change the contents of /etc/OpenCL/vendors/atiocl32.icd, to make it the same as the biggest library name in the sdk.

But now, although aticonfig sees all 3 6990 cards, poclbm does not see any of them , just the cpu. I puzzled as to why that should be.

Any suggestions?

Just wanted to say that I took out a mining contract with Vladimar, and ... for my own reasons had to invoke the cancellation clause before it started. (My creditors found me and wanted my shirt, aagh!)

Not a particularly nice thing to do to anyone really as he had presumably started to ready the contract, and yes, I admit it, I am a flippertygibbet.

Vladimir refunded my funds rapidly and without a murmur of protest. 

Just wanted to say thanks for a smooth transaction and for being so straightforward.

regards,

   Mark.

Surely one of the biggest problems with gold is that its hard stuff to "manufacture" yet while it is in use as currency its not actually in use at all. In particular, at one stage all the gold (and silver) ended up in vaults, never touched for years or decades on end, with notes circulating instead. Sure the notes were backed by gold bars, but the point is, is it really making good use of this expensive to manufacture, much in demand material to lock it in a room? Imagine the miners contempt, when you tell him that he spends his life mining and refining this material for it to be put in a vault and weighed every 5 years, and that is all that EVER happens to it.  Compare that with silver used in photography or platinum used in a catalytic converter, those are good uses of materials that are hard wrought.

Today, we spent most of the gold on other things, like winning the 1st world war, and generally having our cake and eating it. Thats a good thing because we really have had our cake at least twice in a very real sense, those gold backed notes still circulate, even though the gold is gone.

But discussion about those good old days when gold coins circulated as the only form of money do miss the point, really modern money does perform a bunch better than the old money did from the point of view of boom and bust, at least thats what I understand. And, yes the current crisis is bad, but not typical. Measuring that performance is what economists do and is not a straightforward science, shrouded in history as it is, but I have a feeling that allthough we all beef about it, modern money is, generally but not always better.

Bitcoin does have the same flaw. After all, its possible to imagine a currency where the difficult act of creating a coin, necessarily difficult, to avoid worthlessness, was of itself useful. Lets imagine that instead of hashing random numbers we were protein folding at home, discovering new drugs.  That would be just as valid as doing SHA256 sums, use just as much electricity, but is not so easy to regulate, and so at present we cannot use it in bitcoin. Maybe one day.  Its necessary that coin generation has very carefully controllable characteristics, and one day we may know how to predict these for real unsolved problems, but this is not easy stuff. So yes, I do think bit coin has these flaws.

But lets not loose sight of the advantages of bitcoin, advantages that may well completely overshadow othercurrencies in the computer age. Today more commerce is done over the internet. More and more actual services are transmitted over the internet. Many of us live our lives on the internet. There is no real way to transmit either gold or another currency over the internet until bitcoin came along. More than this, transmitting money to other countries has been a need for hundreds of years, and banks charge a pretty penny for this service - they need to because for other currencies or gold its hard to do. (Look what problems the spanish had trying to get gold from south america to span!!) Bitcoin does this effortlessly, fast and scaleably.  With the aid of exchangers in many countries this will change banking for ever. Micropayments over the internet are another area that has just never worked properly with other currencies but is perfect with bitcoin. Lastly, existing currencies have so much corruption built in, the idea of something that really cannot be faked, is just such a breath of fresh air to most people that I cannot see how bitcoin can fail. And it has a long way to go yet.

Will bitcoin ever be a currency? I just don't know. Will it ever be the major currency? Not in my lifetime I'd say.  But I am certain that it will be successful, and you will know what that means when you see it.

Moa,

Its not a good idea to use the -9 argument here. This shuts down the processes without allowing them to do shutdown gracefully. just use kill <processid> or pkill <processname> and this will give the process a chance to shutdown correctly.

I use a script that does the stopping and starting. I posted a slightly earlier version of it here

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6307.msg94337#msg94337

It also has the feature that you can make the mier work only when not using the computer if you want.

If you want to make it work only at certain times, use this script and cron.

All of this is linux only, I'm afraid.

Perhaps this has been discussed before, not sure where.

I'd like to accept bit coins for the work I do. I work through my own company. Therefore it would be wrong to accept payment into my private wallet, it has to be kept separate, the company is a separate  entity to me. But I use the same computer, and in fact even when I am doing "company stuff" my private bitcoin client is usually running.

What I feel I ought to be able to do is have more than one identity within the one client. So separate balances, separate transaction lists, seperate bitcoin addresses, like separate bank accounts, and I can initiate payments from any account or between them, if I choose. Also seperate mining interfaces. Its quite possible that my company owns one GPU and I own another after all.

I did try a few experiments at getting a second instance running under a different linux user, but this doesnt really address it, although it is close. It seems a bit lame that bitcoin does not seem to play good with multiple instances running, the great advantage lets face it of a modern OS like Linux or Windows over, say MSDOS, is that you can if you like have multiple instances of things running, perhaps differently configured. This is something that should just work.

That aside though, really, it ought to be possible to have multiple identities within a single gui or daemon client, and there ought to be a creat a new identity button for this. There should be no need to re-download the blockchain, or set up another port for communication, that ought to all be common.

There are many other reasons why someone might want multiple identities, and at the moment this is easy to do on another computer. It ought to be doable within the client too.

So this is a feature request,  not quite sure where to put it. Thoughts?