Raspberry Pi alternatives that can run multiple BFL singles, ASICs ?

[hardcore-fs]

Exactly.  You can make a custom PC with a micro ATX motherboard, RAM, CPU etc and use that as a custom controller.  They can be put together pretty cheaply but they still consume way more power than a RPi or BeagleBone.

A PC controlling an ASIC miner will draw around 100 watts (obviously if it's GPU mining it's way more).
A BeagleBone draws about 3 watts.

At 10 cents/kWh a PC costs about $7/month to run 24/7.

if someone compiles a tutorial on how to make it run via beaglebone, im happy to oblige 

You don't need a tutorial........

Go get "buildroot" it will do it *ALL for you.

[stevegee58]

I got cgminer running on a BeagleBone.  The scary part is I could have been racking up the BTC back in the early days with a rig like this.
At my current hash rate I should be getting 1 share every 7-8 hours or so. 

[crazyates]

I got cgminer running on a BeagleBone.  The scary part is I could have been racking up the BTC back in the early days with a rig like this.
At my current hash rate I should be getting 1 share every 7-8 hours or so. 

That's got USB. You tried it with any FPGAs?

[stevegee58]

I got cgminer running on a BeagleBone.  The scary part is I could have been racking up the BTC back in the early days with a rig like this.
At my current hash rate I should be getting 1 share every 7-8 hours or so. 

That's got USB. You tried it with any FPGAs?

I don't own an FPGA miner but cgminer can be built with support for BitForce, Icarus, ModMiner and Ztex FPGA boards.
Building the cgminer executable under Linux is really simple and straightforward.  I built cgminer for CPU mining directly on the BeagleBone using build command switches found in the cgminer thread.

[Cablez]

What version of linux is on the beaglebone?  I tried to build cpu support for cgminer on an ubuntu laptop and it wanted to download like 660MB of extra data for the assembly drivers.

[stevegee58]

What version of linux is on the beaglebone?  I tried to build cpu support for cgminer on an ubuntu laptop and it wanted to download like 660MB of extra data for the assembly drivers.

I used the stock BB  image which is Angstrom.  Regarding the assembly routines (yasm) you don't need them.  I just didn't download yasm and cgminer built fine without it.  The assembly code provided by yasm is x86 code that speeds up the mining algorithm.  It won't work on a BB or RPi anyway since they're both ARM processors.

Here's exactly what I did from the command line:

root@beaglebone:~# wget http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/cgminer-2.9.4.tar.bz2
root@beaglebone:~# tar xjvf cgminer-2.9.4.tar.bz2
root@beaglebone:~# cd cgminer-2.9.4
root@beaglebone:~# ./configure --enable-cpumining
root@beaglebone:~# make

Nothing to it.  If you want FPGA mining there are switches like --enable-bitforce that you can use with "./configure" to turn those on.

[Cablez]

Sweet. Will give it another go.  It was yasm that was huge.

EDIT: nope, just says all devices disabled, cannot mine.

[HDSolar]

Is anyone on here using a Dreamplug?  If so PM me, got some questions.

[stevegee58]

Sweet. Will give it another go.  It was yasm that was huge.

EDIT: nope, just says all devices disabled, cannot mine.

Make sure that after doing a fresh "./configure --enable-cpumining" you do "make clean" before doing "make" again

BTW I just got cgminer compiled on my Ubuntu PC.

[zxyzxy]

is there a desktop thingie that has a lower power consumption than asus eee box or dell studio hybrid? (or anything low powered with a case in that matter)

[stevegee58]

is there a desktop thingie that has a lower power consumption than asus eee box or dell studio hybrid? (or anything low powered with a case in that matter)

"Thingie?"  Mom?  Is that you?

[zxyzxy]

actually is dad. i think i will settle with mele a1000, hope everything goes OK there

[Cablez]

Sweet. Will give it another go.  It was yasm that was huge.

EDIT: nope, just says all devices disabled, cannot mine.

Make sure that after doing a fresh "./configure --enable-cpumining" you do "make clean" before doing "make" again

BTW I just got cgminer compiled on my Ubuntu PC.

I tried that command series and the configure says cpumining is enabled but after make clean and make, cgminer still says 'all devices disabled, cannot mine'.  I guess it doesn't work with pentium M cpus?

I am not really trying to mine just test out the compile to be ready for my asics.


EDIT:  I got it working, stupid ./   

[stevegee58]

That's really weird.  My Linux PC is an ancient 1.5 GHz AMD processor and it build fine.  If it bothers you I guess you could ask about CPU mining on the cgminer thread and give everyone a good laugh. 

Anyway back on topic you should be able to ASIC mine by doing the appropriate cgminer build under Linux.

[Kuusou]

is there a desktop thingie that has a lower power consumption than asus eee box or dell studio hybrid? (or anything low powered with a case in that matter)

Well if you are looking for a full on desktop mini PC then you are a bit limited. There are others, all easy to find. All expensive, especially if you are using them as a mining controller.

For me I just got this this "netbook." and I think it's going to work as well as any of these other options, if not better. It has the added benefit of an attached screen and keyboard, as well as 3 x USB, 2GB on-board storage with an SD expansion slot, and full wireless capabilities out of the box. For half the price of most options, and not having to wait for restocks of RPis, I think it's pretty slick.

Now I may find out that there are some issues but for the price and what it seems to offer, I think it's worth testing it out.

---

I just noticed that you said you are going to go with the mele a1000. If you can get that for $70 or so I think it will be nice. I know you said you wanted to have a case and that one sure does give that "Is still a computer." look. Something you would be willing to have out in the open. I'm really looking to put mine in a drawer though, haha.

[zxyzxy]

name some of the others with power consumption below 30W, idealy from 10W to 20W. Mele for example gives about 9-10W and has a nice case, also more powerful than RPi.

[bitcoindaddy]

There are hundreds of devices that could potentially be used as a mining controller for ASICS:

http://www.newark.com/jsp/bespoke/bespoke7.jsp?bespokepage=newark/en_US/dev/dev_kits.jsp&CMP=KNC-G-COMM&mckv=smRQYgvaB|pcrid|16056386301|plid|

Some of them are quite cheap because the chip manufacturer wants you to develop with their chip.

[whizter]

I'm planning to buy the Asus C60M1-I mini-ITX board for my asic(s), it consumes something in between 10-20W in idle, but I think it depends mainly on the chosen power supply, I have a spare Corsair 450W here, enough for the board and several bASICS, and a 16GB Kingston SSD, which is enough for the operating system. I don't wanna buy a raspberry, because I heard of instabilities etc. and if you buy a raspberry here in germany from an ebay reseller it's only a few EUR more to buy a Asus C60 board (~60 EUR). Also I don't have the whole stuff you also need for a raspberry here (power supply, SD-card). I also really like the new Intel NUC units, they have plenty of power (onboard i3 with hyperthreading) for different tasks and consume less than this C60 board, but it costs alot (~300 EUR here), so I'll stick with the cheap mini-itx board.

[rchapoteau]

There are rumors that the Ouya might start shipping this month sometime.  I'm not sure what the specs are yet, but it might fit the bill.  Its going to cost much more than a Rasberry Pi, but it should be a nice contained unit.  I'm trying to get answers on power consumption for it now.

[crazyates]

Just an update: I got my MK802 II working with CGMiner pretty easily, and it's been great for several days now, but I've only got 1 Single to test on. I'm actually gonna move it today, but should be good. I'm very happy with this thing.