Linux or windows 7

[x^2]

Should I use windows or Linux for mining rigs?

Windows- lots of drivers and can support multiple GPUs, but costs about $100

Linux- free but not very many drivers.  I'm not sure about the GPUs, but there ARE some premade mining distros.

Which one?

[1714951167]

1714951167

[1714951167]

1714951167

[Beastlymac]

Go with Linux on a usb
You can follow Kano's guide here
https://github.com/kanoi/linux-usb-cgminer/blob/master/linux-usb-cgminer

[mryayo]

I see a lot of people use Ubuntu Desktop 13.04 or Kubuntu you can try those, I think that will be your best bet!
 

[x^2]

I see a lot of people use Ubuntu Desktop 13.04 or Kubuntu you can try those, I think that will be your best bet!
 

What about 4 GPUs?
Can Ubuntu support that many?  Also are the drivers available?

Thanks for the guide!

[crazyates]

What about 4 GPUs?

Yep, Linux can use 4 GPUs.

What about a free version of Windows that can fit on a 512MB USB stick and is designed from the ground up for mining? Check it out: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=247537.0

[K1773R]

I see a lot of people use Ubuntu Desktop 13.04 or Kubuntu you can try those, I think that will be your best bet!
 

What about 4 GPUs?
Can Ubuntu support that many?  Also are the drivers available?

Thanks for the guide!

of course, its linux... linux eats winblows all the time

[c789]

I use mostly Linux (Xubuntu).

I've gone through about 10 different mining setups over the last year, and only 2 of those were Windows-based (Bitminter and Guiminer). The Windows setups worked well and were very easy to set up and use.

The others were mostly Xubuntu (a variation of Ubuntu that uses less system resources) with cgminer. These also worked well, but I did have a problem with a few setups that were using 2 identical GPUs. The total hash rate was half of what it should have been, and if you search this site, you'll see that this problem pops up relatively often. The solution is simple: either start the system with a monitor plugged into one of the GPUs, or put a dummy plug in one of the GPUs. Windows doesn't seem to have this problem, but for a $3.00 dummy plug as opposed to a $100 OS, I'll choose the $3.00. Other than the first-time setup (I had a bit of a learning curve), Linux has been great.

[x^2]

I use mostly Linux (Xubuntu).
Other than the first-time setup (I had a bit of a learning curve), Linux has been great.

This is my first time setup.  I've already learned a lot in windows, but I might do linux (if it is not too complicated)

So:
Win7 or Win8
Ubuntu
Xubuntu
Kubuntu
or something else (mint, debian, fedora)

thanks

[PEBKAC]

Should I use windows or Linux for mining rigs?

Windows- lots of drivers and can support multiple GPUs, but costs about $100

Linux- free but not very many drivers.  I'm not sure about the GPUs, but there ARE some premade mining distros.

Which one?

Linux is pretty much the Genesis of modern desktop computing.
It supports waaaaaay more than Windows does.
Windows is artificially capped to support up to X number of CPU's or Cores. Linux is only limited by what the hardware supports.
When it comes to drivers, there is far more available for Linux. Maybe not always official from the manufacturer, but they're there. Maybe you need to trace the hardware back to the chipset manufacturer (certain Realtek based soundcards, for instance). And even if your specific distro isn't supported, the drives can be built from source to fit in. That way, hardware is also never too old. If you can connect it, you can make it work. With Windows, driver support is often dropped. Many HP scanners and printers for instance are simply not supported in Win Vista and later (like the Scanjet 4470c), just because driver support has been dropped. There are no sourcecodes available and there are no tools to create Windows drivers.

And ofcourse, you can make Linux run on pretty much anything with a general purpose CPU, independent of architecture. Hacking a router with an ARM CPU? No problem! Smartphone? Sure, can be done! MP3 player? Yes, some will actually run Linux! Nintendo DS? Yup, also works! A Playstation or Xbox? Yeah, why not?!

The drawback to Linux is that is needs a different mindset to work with it and it may not always be as userfriendly.
That, plus the fact that Microsoft muscled their way into the pre-built computer market, makes it so that we now mostly use Windows.
We're all just lazy mouse-clickers
And yes, I am also a lazy mouse-clicker, but I can find my way around Linux. Just too lazy to do it

[Lethos]

If things can be done via Linux, I prefer Ubuntu, but I do admit there is still some things that are easier in Windows.
The past 5 years Ubuntu and various apps have been chipping away at the need for Windows.
Wine was one the best things that allowed to make to have almost no reason for Windows any more, even for gaming.

Setting up a pure mining rig is best done with Linux as long as you familiar with Linux based OS.
There is plenty of guides for using standard Ubuntu and getting a mining rig made out of it or using a custom and ready to go OS.

[xjack]

Linux all the way.

Recently I decided to move my miner to the basement - heat + noise and summer don't mix.  Also, my Win7 PC is a power hog, and I wanted something dedicated and smaller.

I've been out of the Linux lab for a long time, starting over 20 years ago.  Started with IRIX on SGI Indy, and various shells and X implementations later.  I haven't touched Linux since about 2002.

It took quite a bit of time and refreshing myself, basically learning it all over again from internet articles.  The finished product is a headless xubuntu nettop that boots to cgminer/anubis in less than 30 seconds.

If you're new to linux, you've got some work ahead of you setting up a miner.  You will need to be comfortable with the command line - it actually saves you time in the long run.  There is help in the forums and in articles across the net.  There are some very nice open source tools around that you can use to build a lightweight, reliable miner that's easy to manage remotely.


If you want it all out-of-the-can;  Do a Win7 setup that contains the tools you're familiar with at the expense of a license and (in my opinion) reliability.

If you're able to do some reading and not rely on checkboxes and .lnk files, then go Linux.  Once its configured - you can be confident it works.

[batt01]

I am gradually moving afway from windows.  only have one orwo computer sill on windows. HTPC for Windows Media Center. My Media Sever runs UnRaid (Slackware),  family PC runing Zorin OS (Ubuntu based) and I run MinePeon (Arch LInux) with 6 USB Block Erupters.

[x^2]

Linux is pretty much the Genesis of modern desktop computing.
It supports waaaaaay more than Windows does.
Windows is artificially capped to support up to X number of CPU's or Cores. Linux is only limited by what the hardware supports.
When it comes to drivers, there is far more available for Linux. Maybe not always official from the manufacturer, but they're there. Maybe you need to trace the hardware back to the chipset manufacturer (certain Realtek based soundcards, for instance). And even if your specific distro isn't supported, the drives can be built from source to fit in. That way, hardware is also never too old. If you can connect it, you can make it work. With Windows, driver support is often dropped. Many HP scanners and printers for instance are simply not supported in Win Vista and later (like the Scanjet 4470c), just because driver support has been dropped. There are no sourcecodes available and there are no tools to create Windows drivers.

And ofcourse, you can make Linux run on pretty much anything with a general purpose CPU, independent of architecture. Hacking a router with an ARM CPU? No problem! Smartphone? Sure, can be done! MP3 player? Yes, some will actually run Linux! Nintendo DS? Yup, also works! A Playstation or Xbox? Yeah, why not?!

Really?  Ok then, I shall use Linux!  But it actually works on a DS!  lol!

Which distro though?
(ubuntu seems the best but what about x and kubuntu?)

[c789]

This is the Linux distro I mostly use for mining, and the guide I followed:

Complete Guide to Mine Bitcoin on Xubuntu 12.04
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gw7YPYgMgNNU42skibULbJJUx_suP_CpjSEdSi8_z9U/edit

This guide is a little old, but it will still work for newer versions of Xubuntu. There are other good guides on this site as well. Read through several and see which one makes the most sense to you. You'll at least be able to glean a few good points from all of the guides, and they have a way of explaining things that another guide may not have explained as well.

Be sure to read cgminer's README. It has a lot of important info that you'll need now, and probably will need later.

My advice: use Bitminter or Guiminer on your Windows system until your Linux box is ready. That way, you'll get used to how an operational mining rig operates, and it will get the "I've got to get mining NOW!!" bug out of your mind so you can concentrate on configuring the Linux system.

[x^2]

This is the Linux distro I mostly use for mining, and the guide I followed:

Complete Guide to Mine Bitcoin on Xubuntu 12.04
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gw7YPYgMgNNU42skibULbJJUx_suP_CpjSEdSi8_z9U/edit

This guide is a little old, but it will still work for newer versions of Xubuntu. There are other good guides on this site as well. Read through several and see which one makes the most sense to you. You'll at least be able to glean a few good points from all of the guides, and they have a way of explaining things that another guide may not have explained as well.

Be sure to read cgminer's README. It has a lot of important info that you'll need now, and probably will need later.

My advice: use Bitminter or Guiminer on your Windows system until your Linux box is ready. That way, you'll get used to how an operational mining rig operates, and it will get the "I've got to get mining NOW!!" bug out of your mind so you can concentrate on configuring the Linux system.

Ok, thanks!
Where can I get the drivers though?

[c789]

There are URLs in the cgminer readme, but AMD has changed their links 1-2 times in the past year. You can get the APP-SDK and ADL-SDK from these:

http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/heterogeneous-computing/amd-accelerated-parallel-processing-app-sdk/downloads/

http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/graphics-development/display-library-adl-sdk/

[PEBKAC]

Linux is pretty much the Genesis of modern desktop computing.
It supports waaaaaay more than Windows does.
Windows is artificially capped to support up to X number of CPU's or Cores. Linux is only limited by what the hardware supports.
When it comes to drivers, there is far more available for Linux. Maybe not always official from the manufacturer, but they're there. Maybe you need to trace the hardware back to the chipset manufacturer (certain Realtek based soundcards, for instance). And even if your specific distro isn't supported, the drives can be built from source to fit in. That way, hardware is also never too old. If you can connect it, you can make it work. With Windows, driver support is often dropped. Many HP scanners and printers for instance are simply not supported in Win Vista and later (like the Scanjet 4470c), just because driver support has been dropped. There are no sourcecodes available and there are no tools to create Windows drivers.

And ofcourse, you can make Linux run on pretty much anything with a general purpose CPU, independent of architecture. Hacking a router with an ARM CPU? No problem! Smartphone? Sure, can be done! MP3 player? Yes, some will actually run Linux! Nintendo DS? Yup, also works! A Playstation or Xbox? Yeah, why not?!

Really?  Ok then, I shall use Linux!  But it actually works on a DS!  lol!

Which distro though?
(ubuntu seems the best but what about x and kubuntu?)

Yes, works on a DS. Did it on my silver DSLite. Just get a flash cartridge (M3, R4, TTDS, etc) and a microSD card. Then download DSLinux and put it on the flashcart. There was even a GUI.
If you happen to own a DS, it really is worth it to give the flashcart thing a try. There's a lot of so-called homebrew software. Quake has already been ported to the DS too (and actually very playable too) and loads of other pieces of software. (BeupDS MSN client, DSWeather, Voice-and-Pen-Chat, FaceBook4DS, Nitrotracker, etc etc)
Appart from the fact that a DS has no USB ports, it would be a great candidate to use as miner control. If it had USB, you could run DS Linux, plug a Block Erupter in and install CGMiner. Will fetch work through Wifi and everything.

When it comes to Distro's, it's pretty much personal preference. Anything recent should be just fine.
Ubuntu does seem to be the most comonly used, but Fedora (formerly Redhat) and Debian are also pretty popular.
Difference between Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu is the GUI system they use. There's a few different methods in existance for Linux, and everyone has their own preference. So in essence they are the same, except for they way it looks.
Any major distro will also come with an absolute metric shit-ton of drivers, so pretty much any fairly well known hardware will work out of the box, just like in Windows.

You may want to consider installing the latest AMD graphics drivers though. I'm not sure if the APP SDK (OpenCL support) also comes native with the major linux distro's.

If it's your first time in Linux you may want to use a guide to get it set up quickly for mining.
For learning purposes, I'd get an old computer just to play around in Linux.

[Buffer Overflow]

Linux is very stable. Was running my rig without a reboot for over 9 months, no sweat. I had to power it down for a few hours last week though because of an electrical storm. I'll have to start my uptime all over again.

[x^2]

Linux is pretty much the Genesis of modern desktop computing.
It supports waaaaaay more than Windows does.
Windows is artificially capped to support up to X number of CPU's or Cores. Linux is only limited by what the hardware supports.
When it comes to drivers, there is far more available for Linux. Maybe not always official from the manufacturer, but they're there. Maybe you need to trace the hardware back to the chipset manufacturer (certain Realtek based soundcards, for instance). And even if your specific distro isn't supported, the drives can be built from source to fit in. That way, hardware is also never too old. If you can connect it, you can make it work. With Windows, driver support is often dropped. Many HP scanners and printers for instance are simply not supported in Win Vista and later (like the Scanjet 4470c), just because driver support has been dropped. There are no sourcecodes available and there are no tools to create Windows drivers.

And ofcourse, you can make Linux run on pretty much anything with a general purpose CPU, independent of architecture. Hacking a router with an ARM CPU? No problem! Smartphone? Sure, can be done! MP3 player? Yes, some will actually run Linux! Nintendo DS? Yup, also works! A Playstation or Xbox? Yeah, why not?!

Really?  Ok then, I shall use Linux!  But it actually works on a DS!  lol!

Which distro though?
(ubuntu seems the best but what about x and kubuntu?)

Yes, works on a DS. Did it on my silver DSLite. Just get a flash cartridge (M3, R4, TTDS, etc) and a microSD card. Then download DSLinux and put it on the flashcart. There was even a GUI.
If you happen to own a DS, it really is worth it to give the flashcart thing a try. There's a lot of so-called homebrew software. Quake has already been ported to the DS too (and actually very playable too) and loads of other pieces of software. (BeupDS MSN client, DSWeather, Voice-and-Pen-Chat, FaceBook4DS, Nitrotracker, etc etc)
Appart from the fact that a DS has no USB ports, it would be a great candidate to use as miner control. If it had USB, you could run DS Linux, plug a Block Erupter in and install CGMiner. Will fetch work through Wifi and everything.

When it comes to Distro's, it's pretty much personal preference. Anything recent should be just fine.
Ubuntu does seem to be the most comonly used, but Fedora (formerly Redhat) and Debian are also pretty popular.
Difference between Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu is the GUI system they use. There's a few different methods in existance for Linux, and everyone has their own preference. So in essence they are the same, except for they way it looks.
Any major distro will also come with an absolute metric shit-ton of drivers, so pretty much any fairly well known hardware will work out of the box, just like in Windows.

You may want to consider installing the latest AMD graphics drivers though. I'm not sure if the APP SDK (OpenCL support) also comes native with the major linux distro's.

If it's your first time in Linux you may want to use a guide to get it set up quickly for mining.
For learning purposes, I'd get an old computer just to play around in Linux.

Is this the place where I download the drivers?
I installed Ubuntu on my current computer, it has a pretty nice GUI.
It's pretty cool that you can run Linux on the DS! 

[c789]

If you want display drivers for ATI or AMD video cards, go here: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

You'll need the drivers from other two links I posted above (APP-SDK and ADL-SDK) in order to mine using GPUs. So, get and install those drivers first, and then get and install cgminer.