I've been trying to get this working for over a week now, and I'm ready to tear my friggin hair out!!  Consider me a linux retard, I know enough to be dangerous but not enough to know what the hell I'm actually doing... I have a Redfury USB miner, I've built BFGminer from source, and I seem to have everything running correctly except for one problem... BFGminer refuses to acknowledge that I have the hardware plugged in as it won't autodetect.  I haven't figured out how to point it manually to the hardware address (mine is on /dev/ttyACM0).  I'm also trying to put run this on my own p2pool instance, and as far as I can tell I have that set up properly.  I'm completely exasperated and I just want this thing to work, is that too much to ask!?!?

If someone can get me up and running I'd be more than happy to point the miner to your address for 24 hours, thanks ahead of time!

Hi,

I'm brand new to the boards.  I'm wondering about the potential of mining and whether it's economically viable... my understanding is that the cost to get hardware plus the electricity to run it is increasing in order to be competitive.  While older hardware is reduced in price, its reduced viability to "produce" as the difficulty increases means the same rig will produce diminishing returns over time... but the price is also increasing along with the difficulty rate  My question is: Is it beneficial to someone just getting started this late in the game to get into hardware mining? How long before one can reasonably expect to recoup startup costs and turn a profit?  Should one mine BTC or are you better off chasing the promise of highly volatile alt coins?  With limited capital to get off the ground, it seems a little on the entry-prohibitive side....thoughts?