checking bitcoins, debian wheezy repository, bitcoind not executing, newbie

[soy]

I had been running FAH for years.  Last year I think it was I installed Bitcoin and ran it for a few days.  I started having response issues and stopped running Bitcoin and deleted most files.  I've recently decided to start again on an old dual processor W6000 running Debian Wheezy to generate some heat this winter.

I have a few questions.  Among the files I found remaining before deleting most Bitcoin files is the Bitcoin.conf with user name and password, and a text file I saved as bitcoin.address.txt with the encrypted key.

1. Do I use the same name and password on multiple machines?
2. Do I use the same encrypted address string on other machines?
3. How do I check to see if the program generated any bitcoins in the week it had been running or if they disappeared in the bitcoin ripoff?
4. Having just loaded Wheezy and extracted the bitcoin-9.7.1-linux.tar.gz after downloading in KDE the file bitcoind fails to run on the command line from a terminal and returns 'bash: ./bitcoind: cannot execute binary file.  Am I blundering somehow?  The file permissions are 755 and won't execute as user or root.
5. I can't find a Debian Wheezy repository containing Bitcoin files.  Ubuntu and Raspbian Wheezy yes, Debian Wheezy no.  Is there such a repository?

Thanks.  I'm looking forward to crunching data with Bitcoin.

soy

[soy]

Bitcoin mining work has little return now for individual miners with lower hash rates.  I understand Bitcoins are a reward for proof-of-work.  While running folding@home team Soyrunner I saw the complexity increase such that WU's went from days to weeks to longer, of course machine strength dependant.  WU's did give an indication of work done.  Is there anything like a WU, having a start and finish, with Bitcoin mining such that an indication of work actually having been done is given?

[Foxpup]

First of all, I assume you mean 0.7.1, not 9.7.1. And it should contain two versions of each executable, one for 32-bit systems (i386) and one for 64-bit systems (amd64). The error message you're getting indicates that you're running the wrong one for your kernel - if you're running a 32-bit kernel, you can only run 32-bit binaries, regardless of the fact that you have a 64-bit CPU. Try running the 32-bit version of bitcoind (although from the sound of things, you probably actually want to run bitcoin-qt instead).

You can find a slightly out-of-date version of bitcoind (but not bitcoin-qt) in Debian Sid. Due to the fact that is out of date and it doesn't have bitcoin-qt, I'd advise against trying this unless all else fails.

To get access to your bitcoins from an old installation of Bitcoin, you'll need the wallet.dat file. It is a binary file, not a text file; I'm not sure what you mean by a text file with the encrypted key, but I don't think it's what you think it is. None of the text files in the Bitcoin directory will help you get your coins back. If you're unable to recover your old wallet.dat file, I'm afraid whatever coins you had are gone forever.

Also note that the current version of Bitcoin does not mine coins by itself (earlier versions did, but used the CPU only, not your graphics card; this feature was removed due to how ludicrously ineffective CPU-only mining is). For that, you need to also install a bitcoin miner. If you didn't install a miner before, you either weren't mining any bitcoins at all, or, if you were using a very old version of Bitcoin, you were mining an extremely small quantity of bitcoins.