[EDIT: 7-19-2011]
Please refer to the first post of this thread for installation instructions!
****** THE TEXT BELOW IS THE ORIGINAL AND KEPT HERE FOR POSTERITY *************
BETA RELEASE!!!Well, its not really to the point I wanted it for now, but I'm tagging the beta release right now. Its been 100% stable running, though there are a couple of minor bugs here and there with the interface.
The url of the smartcoin development site is
http://code.google.com/p/smartcoin/. You can follow development here, report bugs/feature requests and check out the source code if you would like.
To install:
Smartcoin
doesn't install any mining software, fglrx drivers, ati sdk, pyOpenCL or any other software normally installed for mining.
It is assumed that your machine is set up to mine already (i may automate this in the future though)
You also need to make sure that your $LD_LIBRARY_PATH for the ATI sdk is set in the environment.
On your local mining machine:
cd ~/
sudo apt-get install subversion sqlite3 openssh-server
mkdir smartcoin
cd smartcoin
svn checkout http://smartcoin.googlecode.com/svn/branches/beta1/smartcoin ./
./smartcoin_install.sh
Once you go through the installer, you can start smartcoin at any time by typing 'smartcoin' in your terminal
To Use:
Once you've got smartcoin running, you should be at the control screen. This window give you options to control the smartcoin system. The first thing you should do is add some workers (option 7).. Type 'a' (for add) at the next option screen, and follow the on-screen prompts. Once your first worker is created, the Automatic profile kicks in (ctrl+a followed by 1 will take you to the status screen where you can see). As you add more workers, the automatic profile will adjust on the fly to equally share all workers across all hashing devices. For most people, this is all you will ever need to do. The installer should have automatically added your hashing devices (gpus), installed miners and popular pools. Of course, you can add/edit/delete these, but you shouldn't have to touch them.
The real power is in setting up your own profiles. Option 8, Configure Profiles allows you to do this. Type 'a' (for add) at the next options screen, then follow the on-screen prompts for setting up a profile with as many instances you want for each worker on each device. Yes, its a bit complicated, but once you get it figured out, you'll see how amazing it is! (you can change profiles from the command screen - you can even manually run the AutoDonation profile!
)
known issues:
-----------------------------
- Rejected percentage on status screen only accurate to a whole number (decimal places just show .00)
- Editing profiles isn't implemented yet (though you can delete a profile and add a new one, for now)
- Installer seems to work ok, though I'm not sure how well it does at adding all dependencies.
- CPU devices are disabled by default for now (though technically, they should work)
- Entering a colon (
for the donation time in the settings menu setting crashes smartcoin_control.sh (enter times as 0100 for 1:00am, 1400 for 2:00pm etc... until I start filtering the input.)
- The log file in ~/smartcoin.log never gets wiped... Need to add a log rotation routine (though the log is barely used at the moment, so it shouldn't be an issue)
- Deleting miners isn't "safe" yet(you may delete the miner flagged as default). If you delete a miner, you may have to go to edit miners, and set a new one as default.
Notes:
---------------------------------
When running the installer, you may be prompted for a mysql password. This password isn't necessarily the same as your login password, you need to use the password that was set when you initially installed the mysql server.
Smartcoin uses a linux utility called GNU Screen. GNU Screen is a complicated piece of software in its own right, but you have to at least know the basics to get full use of Smartcoin.
Below are the keystrokes used to perform certain actions. They are part of GNU screen, and I can't make them easier, sorry!
(ctrl+a 1 means, hit the control key and 'a' at the same time, then release them. Then press 1)
ctrl+a 0 -> Control screen
ctrl+a 1 -> 1st host machine (localhost normally)
ctrl+a 2 -> 2nd host machine (and so on.... Not supported yet)
ctrl+c -> Kill the script. Press o to reload it after killing it
ctrl+a d -> Detach (can also be done from control screen)
Though I spent a fair amount of time testing as many options as I could, I'm sure there will be some bugs found while introducing the codebase to a large audience. Please be kind and report what you find here, I'll be sure to fix them as soon as I can.
A note on the AutoDonate feature:
At install time, you will be asked if you would like to donate a portion of your hashing power to help fund development. Please consider donating a small number of minutes per day (36 would be nice - its only 1%). You can enter 0 to opt-out of AutoDonating, and you can change the settings at any time from the control screen. A random time is stored in the database at install. Each day at that time, your hashes will go to some special donation pools that I have set up, and return to the current profile after the amount of minutes you specified. None of this is done in a sneaky way, the status screen will clearly show you as it happens, and you are free to watch the process for yourself.
I hope it works well for everyone that tests the beta. I'll be checking back on and off throughout the day to answer install questions!
