Linux mining distro for the Raspberry PI - MinePeon

[Mudbankkeith]

Hi MineForeman

Will you be able to do anything with the new "Intel Galileo"?

Thats a good question +1

What I have been working so hard on for the past few months is I am rebuilding everything from scratch.  That means that Arch Linux will be gone and replaced with a full embedded os.  This will allow lots of things, simply updates, improve security, allow ASIUC manufacturers to use it etc....

It will allso allow;-

make x86

And that will spit out a x86 image ready to be used on the Galileo .

Neil

Sounds like a lot of work, but the end result also sounds nice.

Thanks for your answer Neil.

We just have to wait and see who gets the first batch of "Free" boards.

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[MineForeman.com]

That means that Arch Linux will be gone and replaced with a full embedded os.  This will allow lots of things, simply updates, improve security, allow ASIUC manufacturers to use it etc....

why don't you just use Raspian?  You could then easily support updates not only for your own packages via apt (you could even script/chron this for auto updates) but also for the core supportive packages as well

no need to reinvent the wheel

Raspbian would obviously only work on Raspberry Pi...

^^^^ Very good answer to that question.

The other thing is that the standard linux distro's are very generic, they dont even come with some of the libraries required (libhidapi) or they if they do have the libraries they are broken for mining or just very badly tuned (libusb).

Building my own OS from the ground up allows me to get very tuned and very efficent.  As an example a standard OS for the Raspberry PI or the BBB is about 450 - 500 MB.  All but about 45 MB of that is bloat, and badly tuned bloat at that. 

The current alpha alpha image of MinePeon is 37 MB of lean mean mining machine .

Neil

[starsoccer9]

That means that Arch Linux will be gone and replaced with a full embedded os.  This will allow lots of things, simply updates, improve security, allow ASIUC manufacturers to use it etc....

why don't you just use Raspian?  You could then easily support updates not only for your own packages via apt (you could even script/chron this for auto updates) but also for the core supportive packages as well

no need to reinvent the wheel

Raspbian would obviously only work on Raspberry Pi...

^^^^ Very good answer to that question.

The other thing is that the standard linux distro's are very generic, they dont even come with some of the libraries required (libhidapi) or they if they do have the libraries they are broken for mining or just very badly tuned (libusb).

Building my own OS from the ground up allows me to get very tuned and very efficent.  As an example a standard OS for the Raspberry PI or the BBB is about 450 - 500 MB.  All but about 45 MB of that is bloat, and badly tuned bloat at that. 

The current alpha alpha image of MinePeon is 37 MB of lean mean mining machine .

Neil

cool well I am eagerly awaiting you to post it for us to mess with.

[MineForeman.com]

cool well I am eagerly awaiting you to post it for us to mess with.

If your feeling adventurous last night I finished the part of the build system that automatically spits images up to the minepeon server.  Go here and grab one;-

http://minepeon.com/img

You will find them in the testing directory,  MPBBB for beagleboard images, MPRPI for raspberry Pi.  (MPX86 should be joining them soon)

Remember though, the images are very alpha but they should work.  The complete OS is there as well as the miners.  The UI is mostly there .

Neil

[bbeesley]

Building my own OS from the ground up allows me to get very tuned and very efficent.  As an example a standard OS for the Raspberry PI or the BBB is about 450 - 500 MB.  All but about 45 MB of that is bloat, and badly tuned bloat at that. 


Neil

it's not all that complicated to make a custom debian based install that just has the minimum of what you need....and again, doesn't reinvent the wheel

using deb package management would greatly simplify updates - particular security updates that you are going to have to manage very tightly if you build a custom OS

and using a debian based system like rasbian makes portability easier and makes the overall system easier for your users to understand, manage, and add to

"building your own OS" just creates a closed system that is difficult to manage because you are the sole dependency for being aware of security updates

lastly, a closed system is less trustworthy in the long run.  I for one will be disinclined to use any OS someone built from the ground up because I would have to trust the person to be honest, technically credible, and sufficiently focused on the project that updates are always timely

[tripppn]

cool well I am eagerly awaiting you to post it for us to mess with.

If your feeling adventurous last night I finished the part of the build system that automatically spits images up to the minepeon server.  Go here and grab one;-

http://minepeon.com/img

You will find them in the testing directory,  MPBBB for beagleboard images, MPRPI for raspberry Pi.  (MPX86 should be joining them soon)

Remember though, the images are very alpha but they should work.  The complete OS is there as well as the miners.  The UI is mostly there .

Neil

What version of BFG miner is on the img?

Got it running all of 15 mins now and so far so good with 2 R-Boxes.  I'll keep you posted if anything happens.

[starsoccer9]

cool well I am eagerly awaiting you to post it for us to mess with.

If your feeling adventurous last night I finished the part of the build system that automatically spits images up to the minepeon server.  Go here and grab one;-

http://minepeon.com/img

You will find them in the testing directory,  MPBBB for beagleboard images, MPRPI for raspberry Pi.  (MPX86 should be joining them soon)

Remember though, the images are very alpha but they should work.  The complete OS is there as well as the miners.  The UI is mostly there .

Neil

Cool, I will give it a shot with my pi

[tripppn]

12+ hours and still running strong

[bitsolutions]

cool well I am eagerly awaiting you to post it for us to mess with.

If your feeling adventurous last night I finished the part of the build system that automatically spits images up to the minepeon server.  Go here and grab one;-

http://minepeon.com/img

You will find them in the testing directory,  MPBBB for beagleboard images, MPRPI for raspberry Pi.  (MPX86 should be joining them soon)

Remember though, the images are very alpha but they should work.  The complete OS is there as well as the miners.  The UI is mostly there .

Neil

Do you have any compilation instructions for how to build these images from source?

[MineForeman.com]

Do you have any compilation instructions for how to build these images from source?

Not really,  it is kind of a work in progress.  Builing an entire OS like this is not for the feint of heart anyway.

I do note though that I have FINALY got hidapi to work correctly on the raspberry pi!  No more odd patches to get half of the bfgminer drivers working correctly .

Neil

[Luke-Jr]

Do you have any compilation instructions for how to build these images from source?

Not really,  it is kind of a work in progress.  Builing an entire OS like this is not for the feint of heart anyway.

I do note though that I have FINALY got hidapi to work correctly on the raspberry pi!  No more odd patches to get half of the bfgminer drivers working correctly .

Neil

Wait, really? I thought Raspberry Pi had hardware issues with HID device O.o

[bitsolutions]

Do you have any compilation instructions for how to build these images from source?

Not really,  it is kind of a work in progress.  Builing an entire OS like this is not for the feint of heart anyway.

I do note though that I have FINALY got hidapi to work correctly on the raspberry pi!  No more odd patches to get half of the bfgminer drivers working correctly .

Neil

If you get the chance to write something up on your build setup that would help, this is not the first time I would be building an OS image from source(I've worked with OpenWRT buildroot before and a few other cross compiling systems for embedded devices). For hardware testing I often need to do custom software builds and it would be nice to be able to compile from source.

[MineForeman.com]

Wait, really? I thought Raspberry Pi had hardware issues with HID device O.o

Yeah, go figure...

Every distro I tried barfed with raw access.  I was quite surprised to see it work myself.  I am just running a few tests but it seems that all of the "USB Weirdness" has despaired.

Neil

[MineForeman.com]

If you get the chance to write something up on your build setup that would help

Will do.  It is a bit of a mess at the moment but with you experience with buildroot you are 90% of the way there already.

There is a lot that needs to go into the build scripts instead of me typeing at the console but watch this thread, as I get closer to w "working gadget" it will all be here.

Neil

[bitsolutions]

If you get the chance to write something up on your build setup that would help

Will do.  It is a bit of a mess at the moment but with you experience with buildroot you are 90% of the way there already.

There is a lot that needs to go into the build scripts instead of me typeing at the console but watch this thread, as I get closer to w "working gadget" it will all be here.

Neil

If you can write down the build steps I can try and automate it.

[MineForeman.com]

If you can write down the build steps I can try and automate it.

I keep making notes every time I go though the entire process and automating bits as I go, hopefully I will have something semi-decent soon.

Just out of curiosity, is there a project you want to use it for or something?

Neil

[bitsolutions]

If you can write down the build steps I can try and automate it.

I keep making notes every time I go though the entire process and automating bits as I go, hopefully I will have something semi-decent soon.

Just out of curiosity, is there a project you want to use it for or something?

Neil

I'm looking to have a good operating system for datacenter operations for miners that need a raspberry pi, there are certain defaults that I would want to tweak so that I can integrate it better with a deployment scripting system that I built.

[Mudbankkeith]

Wait, really? I thought Raspberry Pi had hardware issues with HID device O.o

Yeah, go figure...

Every distro I tried barfed with raw access.  I was quite surprised to see it work myself.  I am just running a few tests but it seems that all of the "USB Weirdness" has despaired.

Neil

Hi Neil
A Pi that works properly, then software that's portable.  
You need to increase your fees a few points, then this could become your "Day Job"  

[MineForeman.com]

I'm looking to have a good operating system for datacenter operations for miners that need a raspberry pi, there are certain defaults that I would want to tweak so that I can integrate it better with a deployment scripting system that I built.

Cool, I will help however I can.  Don't suppose I can convince you to leave the donation scripts in .

Neil

[bitsolutions]

I'm looking to have a good operating system for datacenter operations for miners that need a raspberry pi, there are certain defaults that I would want to tweak so that I can integrate it better with a deployment scripting system that I built.

Cool, I will help however I can.  Don't suppose I can convince you to leave the donation scripts in .

Neil

Probably not since I usually don't own the miners myself but there are some features I would like to try and add which I'll try and pull request. Features related to networking such as GUI IP address settings etc.