GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[edonkey]

I don't have my sticks yet, but I'm configuring the software to get ready. I'm using Minera on a Raspberry Pi, but ran into some problems this morning. If anyone else is using Minera on a Pi, hopefully this info will be helpful.

The version of bfgminer that comes with Minera is too old to use with the sticks. It has to be at least v5.3.0. Unfortunately my attempts to build the latest bfgminer have not succeeded. When using the Minera script (i.e. "build_miner.sh bfgminer"), I ended up with a very old version of bfgminer being built. And when I manually built bfgminer from the git trunk, I ended up with 5.2.0, which is also too old.

I've posted on the minera and bfgminer threads, but decided to move on and try Novak's cgminer-gekko.

Novak's instructions on this thread (the usual configure, make, sudo make install pattern), work fine. You should ssh in as the minera user (password "minera" if you didn't change it) then follow Novak's instructions to build and install.

Once built, you have to make the binary "visible" to minera by copying it to the "custom" minera folder (you also have to use a different name than "cgminer"):

Code:

cp cgminer /var/www/minera/minera-bin/custom/cgminer-gekko

Once copied, enable this binary as a custom miner by going to Settings -> Custom miners in the minera web GUI. There should be an entry for "cgminer-gekko" which you just have to turn on. If there is no "cgminer-gekko" entry, refresh the page so that minera will take a fresh look a the "custom" folder.

Once the new cgminer-gekko is configured as a custom miner, you can select it from the popup list under Local Miner Settings. Then you can specify your frequency under Manual options (e.g. --compac-freq 150). You would also set up the usual options using the web GUI, like your pools.

When you start up your miner, you can see the log in the Minera GUI, if logging was enabled. You can use the log to troubleshoot as needed. I typically disable the log after things are working just to reduce wear and tear on the SD card. If you want to get super fancy, you can install ramlog to put the log files in on a ram disk. I have a tutorial for that on the forum, but I have to admit that I don't bother setting this up any more.

Once I've resolved the bfgminer version issues, I might set it up as an alternative local miner. But first I'll probably try the above "cgminer-gekko" configuration (once my sticks arrive).

Hope this helps...

[notlist3d]

I don't have my sticks yet, but I'm configuring the software to get ready. I'm using Minera on a Raspberry Pi, but ran into some problems this morning. If anyone else is using Minera on a Pi, hopefully this info will be helpful.

The version of bfgminer that comes with Minera is too old to use with the sticks. It has to be at least v5.3.0. Unfortunately my attempts to build the latest bfgminer have not succeeded. When using the Minera script (i.e. "build_miner.sh bfgminer"), I ended up with a very old version of bfgminer being built. And when I manually built bfgminer from the git trunk, I ended up with 5.2.0, which is also too old.

I've posted on the minera and bfgminer threads, but decided to move on and try Novak's cgminer-gekko.

Novak's instructions on this thread (the usual configure, make, sudo make install pattern), work fine. You should ssh in as the minera user (password "minera" if you didn't change it) then follow Novak's instructions to build and install.

Once built, you have to make the binary "visible" to minera by copying it to the "custom" minera folder (you also have to use a different name than "cgminer"):

Code:

cp cgminer /var/www/minera/minera-bin/custom/cgminer-gekko

Once copied, enable this binary as a custom miner by going to Settings -> Custom miners in the minera web GUI. There should be an entry for "cgminer-gekko" which you just have to turn on. If there is no "cgminer-gekko" entry, refresh the page so that minera will take a fresh look a the "custom" folder.

Once the new cgminer-gekko is configured as a custom miner, you can select it from the popup list under Local Miner Settings. Then you can specify your frequency under Manual options (e.g. --compac-freq 150). You would also set up the usual options using the web GUI, like your pools.

When you start up your miner, you can see the log in the Minera GUI, if logging was enabled. You can use the log to troubleshoot as needed. I typically disable the log after things are working just to reduce wear and tear on the SD card. If you want to get super fancy, you can install ramlog to put the log files in on a ram disk. I have a tutorial for that on the forum, but I have to admit that I don't bother setting this up any more.

Once I've resolved the bfgminer version issues, I might set it up as an alternative local miner. But first I'll probably try the above "cgminer-gekko" configuration (once my sticks arrive).

Hope this helps...

To make this very easy what could happen is one person does it.  Then make an image of the SD card anyone can download.

If a image was provided and could be put to card it would be more "dummie" proof for lack of better term. 

[alh]

Got 2 sticks yesterday 

I haven't tried high settings yet; but they work great @ 150.

Your hashrate is actually more suggestive of a 200 MHz clock rate.  Did you supply a command line argument to force it to 150 MHz, or did you just "run it straight from the package". Your rates look great!

My package arrived at work today, so I have to wait until tonight to try mine out.  

[edonkey]

To make this very easy what could happen is one person does it.  Then make an image of the SD card anyone can download.

If a image was provided and could be put to card it would be more "dummie" proof for lack of better term. 

I could do that, but it would be a 2 GB download (compressed). Also I'm not the Minera developer, so that would feel a bit odd.

Probably better would be for Minera to include cgminer-gekko as a built-in option for an upcoming release. Also updating to bfgminer 5.3.0 would be nice (once the kinks there are ironed out). That way Minera would work with the sticks out of the box, providing a couple of mining software choices.

In the meantime if there's any interest in a Pi version of cgminer-gekko, I could post that binary or give it to Novak for him to post. That would at least cut out the build time (which is kind of slow on a Pi). All people would need to do is copy it to the right place and twiddle some GUI settings.

[WBF1]

Any suggested powered USB hubs from Amazon? I'm running out of ports on my eeepc.

[edonkey]

Sticks came in today!

Got them running right away with the stock 150 frequency and no tweaking. I don't want to go higher until I've got the USB Y splitters, which take forever to ship from China.

Between the two, I'm getting 16 GH/s of raw power!

[novak@gekkoscience]

To make this very easy what could happen is one person does it.  Then make an image of the SD card anyone can download.

If a image was provided and could be put to card it would be more "dummie" proof for lack of better term. 

I could do that, but it would be a 2 GB download (compressed). Also I'm not the Minera developer, so that would feel a bit odd.

Probably better would be for Minera to include cgminer-gekko as a built-in option for an upcoming release. Also updating to bfgminer 5.3.0 would be nice (once the kinks there are ironed out). That way Minera would work with the sticks out of the box, providing a couple of mining software choices.

In the meantime if there's any interest in a Pi version of cgminer-gekko, I could post that binary or give it to Novak for him to post. That would at least cut out the build time (which is kind of slow on a Pi). All people would need to do is copy it to the right place and twiddle some GUI settings.

A pi binary is still not necessarily going to work on a different OS because it depends on what libraries it was linked against.  Honestly people would get a lot more mileage out of a minera image, whether official or not as that's easier to use.  I don't have the bandwidth to host it but could post it somewhere accessible.

--
novak

[edonkey]

To make this very easy what could happen is one person does it.  Then make an image of the SD card anyone can download.

If a image was provided and could be put to card it would be more "dummie" proof for lack of better term. 

I could do that, but it would be a 2 GB download (compressed). Also I'm not the Minera developer, so that would feel a bit odd.

Probably better would be for Minera to include cgminer-gekko as a built-in option for an upcoming release. Also updating to bfgminer 5.3.0 would be nice (once the kinks there are ironed out). That way Minera would work with the sticks out of the box, providing a couple of mining software choices.

In the meantime if there's any interest in a Pi version of cgminer-gekko, I could post that binary or give it to Novak for him to post. That would at least cut out the build time (which is kind of slow on a Pi). All people would need to do is copy it to the right place and twiddle some GUI settings.

A pi binary is still not necessarily going to work on a different OS because it depends on what libraries it was linked against.  Honestly people would get a lot more mileage out of a minera image, whether official or not as that's easier to use.  I don't have the bandwidth to host it but could post it somewhere accessible.

That's a good point. Although from a pragmatic standpoint it probably would work because a couple of flavors of cgminer are included with the image. There probably isn't too much divergence between these versions of miner software, so the needed libraries are already likely installed.

In any case, I take your point. I'll PM the Minera author to ask him about Compac support, and if it's OK for me to post an image.

If I do post an image, I'll have to clean it up a bit first. I've already personalized it for me.

[TheRealSteve]

Any suggested powered USB hubs from Amazon? I'm running out of ports on my eeepc.

There's a few suggestions in other threads (click quote links for context and discussion);

http://www.amazon.ca/ORICO-Adapter-MacBook-Desktop-Tablet/dp/B00EH44AA6

http://www.eyeboot.com/10-port-usb-hub

I use this one for my stick miners (I run 4 nanofury sticks, soon to be replaced with 4 Compacs): http://www.coolgear.com/product/metal-7-port-usb-2-0-hub-w-din-rail-mounting-kit-japan-nec-chip

Don't forget to also look for a fan for cooling;

url=http://www.arctic.ac/eu_en/arctic-breeze-mobile.html]Arctic Breeze Mobile[/url] [arctic.ac]

[WBF1]

Any suggested powered USB hubs from Amazon? I'm running out of ports on my eeepc.

There's a few suggestions in other threads (click quote links for context and discussion);

http://www.amazon.ca/ORICO-Adapter-MacBook-Desktop-Tablet/dp/B00EH44AA6

http://www.eyeboot.com/10-port-usb-hub

I use this one for my stick miners (I run 4 nanofury sticks, soon to be replaced with 4 Compacs): http://www.coolgear.com/product/metal-7-port-usb-2-0-hub-w-din-rail-mounting-kit-japan-nec-chip

Don't forget to also look for a fan for cooling;

url=http://www.arctic.ac/eu_en/arctic-breeze-mobile.html]Arctic Breeze Mobile[/url] [arctic.ac]

Thanks

[alh]

I have kind of an odd/simple question. I will give my Compac a try on a Win64 Pro environment initially. While I would be inclined to try a win64 version of bfgminer, Am I just as well served by a win32 version of cgminer (or bfgminer)?

Ultimately I'll fiddle with my Pi enough, but thought I would make sure all is well with Windows to start.

Thanks for any comments and insight.

[Mikestang]

I (novak) have written a cgminer driver which enumerates the compacs as expected, removes the error, and ramps up the clock slowly to prevent spikes on USB power.  

Is your version based off the latest 4.9.2 release?  Has ck chimed in about including the compac stick in future cgminer releases?

Do the compac sticks need to be zadig'd to for cgminer to see them?

I use both bfgminer and cgminer in different applications, so I will likely continue to use both when my compac sticks arrive.

[alh]

My simplistic understanding is that cgminer is what requires the "zadig dance", and NOT the specific miner being used.

I also believe that bfgminer is still "zadig free", regardless the specific hardware.

[novak@gekkoscience]

My simplistic understanding is that cgminer is what requires the "zadig dance", and NOT the specific miner being used.

Yup.

Is your version based off the latest 4.9.2 release? 

Yup.

While I would be inclined to try a win64 version of bfgminer, Am I just as well served by a win32 version of cgminer (or bfgminer)?

It really won't affect performance.  I built and tested it on 64 bit windows seven.

--
novak

[alh]

A thought for Novak and sidehack: Should you guys add the Compac as a product on your website? I just noticed it isn't there.

[sidehack]

Yeah, probably.

[WBF1]

Novak do you intend to push your changes back to cgminer once they are final?

[Searing]

OK I'll be that guy...have no idea how to set up a usb stick

so.....if someone could point me to the dummy directions I'd appreciate it

be step by step ....my first ASIC was a plug and play KNC Jupiter 550gh ....so never had to learn any of this stuff

to top it all off I'll likely run them on a Unbuntu machine(s) (which i just run putty.exe on) so them skills are lame to (the 2 laptops monitoring with putty.exe my Titan(s))


(there is always that one clueless guy ..yep its me)   lost in the cornfield maze need a search and rescue team

If you want to run the sticks on linux, you'll need either bfgminer or cgminer.  Either way you are probably going to have to compile them, but I've had little trouble with this so it's probably just a matter of running a few simple commands.

Here's what you'd do to get cgminer on linux going:
1. Open a terminal.
2. wget http://gekkoscience.com/misc/cgminer-gekko.tar.gz            

This downloads the file- you can save it from your browser instead, it's the same thing.

3. tar -xvzf cgminer-gekko.tar.gz

This extracts the files. which are compressed (like a zip file for linux)

4. cd cgminer-gekko
 
Enters the cgminer-gekko folder you just extracted.

5. sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool

You need to install the dependencies for cgminer.

6. ./autogen.sh

This will generate a configure script for you which will set up compiling for your system.

7. ./configure --enable-gekko

This will configure the build.  This is the most likely place to have anything go wrong, if it does, let me know exactly what's up.  Odds are it would be some package that you should have installed.

8. make

Performs the build.  If you get an error there- again, let me know details.

You are ready to run cgminer.  This should look something like:

./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr --compac-freq 150

Although if you don't have permissions setup you may have to become root or use sudo, eg,

sudo ./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr --compac-freq 150

cgminer should now detect any compacs plugged in while it is running.  Obviously you'll use a slightly different command to launch cgminer, if you use that one you'll be mining for us!  Most pools even post example commands, let me know if you need help figuring it out.

--
novak

error from your instructions above on #7 step (as you said the likely error point) I got this

configure: error: Missing required libcurl dev >= 7.18.2 

I'm using an old Compaq Evo N800v Laptop that can't run XP anymore (to monitor Titan(s)) and is running the latest patches that it can run of (just updated) Unbuntu 12.04 LTS (still supported with updates etc and again updated today all up to date) this is the most upgrade of such my little laptops can handle for unbuntu versions (topped out) FYI.

anyway just need more of your UNBUNTU command line magic to continue (I only installed unbuntu 12.04 LTS on these laptops because not useful for xp or above ....to monitor Titan(s) so
my extent of Linux is managing to install the install CD originally and get on the store and get putty.exe (free) to ssh into Titan(s)

So this oh so zoom zoom terminal scroll spiffy install stuff was pretty cool ...no idea wtf is going on but again cool... ..the installs/ build up to the point it choked in command line etc all
very MATRIX like scrolling away merrily ...looked like it was compiling SKYNET to a linux newbie like me...all very spiffy)

anyway just looking at what monkey see monkey do commands I need to type in next to continue this process

again thanks for the help

[VirosaGITS]

Has it been attempted to push it until the point where the HW errors exceed the GH gain? 225, 250, 300 etc?

[Jake36]

OK I'll be that guy...have no idea how to set up a usb stick

so.....if someone could point me to the dummy directions I'd appreciate it

be step by step ....my first ASIC was a plug and play KNC Jupiter 550gh ....so never had to learn any of this stuff

to top it all off I'll likely run them on a Unbuntu machine(s) (which i just run putty.exe on) so them skills are lame to (the 2 laptops monitoring with putty.exe my Titan(s))


(there is always that one clueless guy ..yep its me)    lost in the cornfield maze need a search and rescue team

If you want to run the sticks on linux, you'll need either bfgminer or cgminer.  Either way you are probably going to have to compile them, but I've had little trouble with this so it's probably just a matter of running a few simple commands.

Here's what you'd do to get cgminer on linux going:
1. Open a terminal.
2. wget http://gekkoscience.com/misc/cgminer-gekko.tar.gz             

This downloads the file- you can save it from your browser instead, it's the same thing.

3. tar -xvzf cgminer-gekko.tar.gz

This extracts the files. which are compressed (like a zip file for linux)

4. cd cgminer-gekko
 
Enters the cgminer-gekko folder you just extracted.

5. sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool

You need to install the dependencies for cgminer.

6. ./autogen.sh

This will generate a configure script for you which will set up compiling for your system.

7. ./configure --enable-gekko

This will configure the build.  This is the most likely place to have anything go wrong, if it does, let me know exactly what's up.  Odds are it would be some package that you should have installed.

8. make

Performs the build.  If you get an error there- again, let me know details.

You are ready to run cgminer.  This should look something like:

./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr --compac-freq 150

Although if you don't have permissions setup you may have to become root or use sudo, eg,

sudo ./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr --compac-freq 150

cgminer should now detect any compacs plugged in while it is running.  Obviously you'll use a slightly different command to launch cgminer, if you use that one you'll be mining for us!  Most pools even post example commands, let me know if you need help figuring it out.

--
novak

I got the cgminer-gekko onto my Pi running raspbian, had to add a few things to get it to compile right, and don't have my sticks, so don't know if it will work yet.

For anyone compiling on a Pi running raspbian, on step 5 above I added:   libcurl4-openssl-dev pkg-config libncurses5-dev and libudev-dev (guess their not in raspbian and it came up with some errors)

So step 5 was: sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool libcurl4-openssl-dev pkg-config libncurses5-dev libudev-dev

Then step 7. ./configure --enable-gekko --disable-libcurl  (raspbian will show an error if libcurl is not installed, but cgminer doesn't need it)

Step 8 I just did: sudo make install

Tried to run cgminer (with nothing plugged in) before adding the other dev packages and it wouldn't start, added the dev's and it started up looking for miners.

Then copied from http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/  readme

The long version:

On linux, the direct USB support requires no drivers at all. However due to permissions issues, you may not be able to mine directly on the devices as a
regular user without giving the user access to the device or by mining as root (administrator). In order to give your regular user access, you can make
him a member of the plugdev group with the following commands:

sudo usermod -G plugdev -a `whoami`

If your distribution does not have the plugdev group you can create it with:

sudo groupadd plugdev

In order for the USB devices to instantly be owned by the plugdev group and accessible by anyone from the plugdev group you can copy the file
"01-cgminer.rules" from the cgminer archive into the /etc/udev/rules.d directory with the following command:

sudo cp 01-cgminer.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/

After this you can either manually restart udev and re-login, or more easily just reboot.  Thanks ck

This should save everyone else planing on running the sticks on a Pi some time (if it works when my sticks arrive).