Yet Another Newbie Question: Regarding getting bitcoins

[IamFuzzles]

I've looked around the wiki and such, and though there are things stating it in ways, I didn't find anything explicitly answering this question. If all I do is mine, then is the only way I'll receive bitcoins is if I complete a block? I read something about fees, but didn't understand it well and was wondering if that was another way of getting coins through simple mining? Just looking for a good explanation I can understand.

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[BTCPrizes]

If you mine solo you have to solve a block which can take ages unless you have massive gpu power. You can get your share's worth by joining a pool where you can choose payouts per share (you get paid based on number of shares you submit) or proportional to the chunk of block you solve. If you have higher hash rate you want to go proportional.

[IamFuzzles]

Makes sense. I'm not sure what's considered a high hashrate, but good to know. Any place to find more info on the fees thing and how that works?

[1.21gigawatts]

join a pool is the best way

[jondecker76]

yes, pools are the way to go for most people - I personally wouldn't even consider solo mining unless I had at least 50 GHash or so

[BTCPrizes]

Makes sense. I'm not sure what's considered a high hashrate, but good to know. Any place to find more info on the fees thing and how that works?

I believe this will answer your questions: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools

[Arxan]

join a pool is the best way

Yep.  It is pretty straightforward:

• Install the bitcoin client so you have an address for the pool to send to
• Install a miner (I used DiabloMiner)
• Pick a pool
• Sign up with the pool if necessary (I started with Eligus and you don't even need to sign up)
• Start your miner with the information for your chosen pool

[Photon939]

Makes sense. I'm not sure what's considered a high hashrate, but good to know. Any place to find more info on the fees thing and how that works?

I wouldn't even bother looking at solo mining unless you have >10Ghash at your disposal and even then it could take you more than a week to find a block if you are unlucky.

[EnzoMatrix]

I personally recommend http://www.btcguild.com and using a USB live OS called LinuxCoin

[mizike29]

Join a pool its the only way that makes sends.  I have one ati 6990 and am getting about 1.5 bitcoins every 30 or so hours.  900 hash rate.  Fees are minimal, non need to worry about those just yet with most common well used pools

[joshuaissac]

Any recommendations for a Bitcoin mining program? One with a point-and-click interface would be ideal, though I would be OK with a CMD one with instructions. Thanks.

[EnzoMatrix]

what OS? guessing from Point and click windows if so I would try using GUIMiner

Linux I recommend pheonix

[joshuaissac]

what OS? guessing from Point and click windows if so I would try using GUIMiner

Linux I recommend pheonix

Thanks. I'm a Windows user. Downloading GUIMiner...

[The_JMiner]

http://www.bitcoinminer.com/

Really good info on mining

[raresaturn]

Makes sense. I'm not sure what's considered a high hashrate, but good to know. Any place to find more info on the fees thing and how that works?

I wouldn't even bother looking at solo mining unless you have >10Ghash at your disposal and even then it could take you more than a week to find a block if you are unlucky.

What do you mean by 'find a block'? 

thanks

[Photon939]

"Finding a block" is the goal of mining - it is what gets you the reward of 50BTC + transaction fees. It is a completed batch of transactions that is added to the block chain (the total record of bitcoin transactions).

When you're mining in a pool, once someone finds a block the reward is distributed to those who worked on it. If you submitted more work, you get a larger chunk of the reward.

If you're solo mining you get the entire reward to yourself, but even with 10GH/s your average time on finding a block would be nearly a week. You could easily go two weeks without finding one. (variance)

Hence one of the main reasons people use pools - you don't get as much money at once but you get a constant flow of the smaller payments.

[Arxan]

What do you mean by 'find a block'? 

thanks

Using your processing power (GPU) to do a bunch of calculations to create a valid block of bitcoin transactions.  This rewards the person who did it with 50 bitcoins plus any transaction fees in the block.  It is quite a lengthy process, and the whole network (everyone mining) produces only on average about 6 blocks an hour.  If you mine in a "pool" you share your processing power with a bunch of other folks.  This can provide you a steadier income, as generating a block solo with only a GPU or two could take a very long time.

[Arxan]

... generating a block solo with only a GPU or two could take a very long time.

For example, I'm currently mining in a pool with one GPU at about 350 MHash/sec, and in the past 8 days have earned 2 bitcoins.  Projecting that out very roughly, if I were mining solo, that two weeks would represent 2/50 ths of the effort required to generate a block, which means I would on average generate one every 50 weeks.  Of course, by then the difficulty would have gone up dozens of times and I would have to be pretty lucky to generate one at all.

[raresaturn]

What do you mean by 'find a block'?  

thanks

Using your processing power (GPU) to do a bunch of calculations to create a valid block of bitcoin transactions.  This rewards the person who did it with 50 bitcoins plus any transaction fees in the block.  It is quite a lengthy process, and the whole network (everyone mining) produces only on average about 6 blocks an hour.  If you mine in a "pool" you share your processing power with a bunch of other folks.  This can provide you a steadier income, as generating a block solo with only a GPU or two could take a very long time.

Holy crap 50 Bitcoins is like $800 bucks right?  So how do they get solved, is it like trial and error?  So theoretically I could get one after a few minutes mining?  (if I'm lucky)

[The_JMiner]

Remember though the difficulty increases thus its not a for sure thing.