Bitminter client (Windows/Linux/Mac)

[btc_artist]

I'd much rather have a regular site login than the Facebook crap.

[P4man]

You dont have to use it.
I think its a good idea though, to make the process even simpler for facebook newbies, which is one audience that bitminter should attract to. I also dont see the point of making a bitminter only login; whats wrong with myopenid?

[BOARBEAR]

I would try this miner if it was not written in Java.  Any chance of making one in C?

I might make a command-line version in the future, but it will most likely also run on a Java Virtual Machine. Why do you prefer C?

Does this miner work on other pools, or just your own ? What about backup pool support ?

So far only in my pool. Support for backup pools is planned, but everything takes time.

I don't use any other Java program.  So I don't have Java installed on my system.  And I don't wanna install Java just for one miner.
I prefer anything that's not Java, not just C.

[P4man]

AFAIK, Java JRE is written in C. If you dont like installing Oracle software, bitminter works fine on IcedTea on linux.

[DrHaribo]

v1.1.1 beta is out.

Changes:

• Improved long polling
• Cache less work, to reduce server load
• Show reason for rejected proofs of work (X-Reject-Reason getwork extension)
• Cache DNS lookups max 15 minutes (so you won't have to restart if we switch server again)
• AMD GCN support: use bitselect() for BFI_INT instead of patching
• Recognize more CPUs/GPUs. Corrected expected hash rates for some devices.

Can someone with a 7970 see how it runs? I don't have one to test it on myself.

[DrHaribo]

Runs well on 7970 and no reports of any problems. So v1.1.1 final is now out. Changes are as described in the previous post.

[DrHaribo]

Quick update today. Version 1.1.2.

Only one change: Recognize FirePro M5950 (Toucan) and enable BFI_INT patching for it.

This was unfortunately broken by the recent GCN changes. Please let me know if you have other GPUs that are not recognized (or CPUs).

[ArticMine]

After upgrading from Ubuntu 10.04 to 11.10 Bitminter will not start at all. I have tried it with both Oracle java and icetea. I currently have Oracle Java version: Version 6 Update 30. When launching Bitminter using Firefox it prompts to open the jre with Firefox and then launches a new tab.  i have verified Java on the Oracle site and it says "Your Java version: Version 6 Update 30" Thanks

[DrHaribo]

Could you try starting it from the command line and see if that works better?

Code:

javaws http://bitminter.com/client/bitminter.jnlp

Also you could try "javaws -viewer" and delete bitminter from the cache. Next time you start it, it will be downloaded anew, which might help.

[ArticMine]

Thanks so much for your reply.

Starting BitMinter from that command line as suggested above works great, so it is a very effective workaround for me;
however it will not start from the browser even after deleting Bitminter from the cache.

[DrHaribo]

When you click the "engine start" button on the website Firefox should open a small window saying "You have chosen to open bitminter.jnlp which is a: JNLP File (2.7 KB)".

Below this, on one of my computers the top option (which is the default) says "Open with Java(TM) Web Start Launcher (default)". On another computer it says "Open with Sun Java 6 Web Start (default)", but the second option "Save File" comes up as the default (pre-selected) option. As long as you get an option to open with web start, choose that and click OK - you're good to go.

Something else may show up as the default "open with" choice. Click the combo box and see if web start is listed. If not, click "Other..." which will list many applications you could use to open the file. If Java web start is on the list, choose that. If you check "do this automatically for files like this from now on" then Firefox will remember your choice for next time.

If Java web start doesn't show up as an option then there's probably something wrong with the file type associations and Firefox doesn't know what to do with a JNLP file. Firefox (unlike some browsers) gets this information from the operating system. Normally there should be a JNLP file type associated with Java web start after you install Java. Not sure what would cause that to fail.

You should have a file under /usr/share/applications/ with javaws in the name.

Ubuntu 11.10 example, /usr/share/applications/icedtea-netx-javaws.desktop

Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=IcedTea Java 6 Web Start
Name[fi]=IcedTea Java 6 - Web Start
Comment=IcedTea Java 6 Web Start
Comment[fi]=IcedTea Java 6 - Web Start
Exec=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/bin/javaws %u
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=openjdk-6
Categories=Application;Network;
MimeType=application/x-java-jnlp-file;
NoDisplay=true

[P4man]

The easy solution for Ubuntu: open Ubuntu software center, search for "IcedTea Java 6 web start". Install it. Done .

[DrHaribo]

I have gotten a few reports that the miner runs very fast on 7970s.

Has anyone compared directly against DiabloMiner? I don't have a 7970 to test on.

[DrHaribo]

v1.2.0 beta1 just released.

New in this release: support for BFL BitFORCE FPGA devices!

A big thanks to Fefox for lending me his BFL singles for testing and his participation in the testing!

If you have one or more such devices, please help test this beta. It has only been tested on 64 bit Windows. That leaves 32 bit Windows, 32/64 bit Linux, 32/64 bit Mac OS X.

How to use it:
It doesn't probe the serial ports by default. There is a new menu "devices" with two possible actions: checking all serial ports for BitFORCE devices, or a specific one. Also there is a new FPGA tab in the options (Settings -> Options in the menus). Here you can set how to detect FPGAs on startup and whether to scan for added/removed devices at intervals. There are also some settings you can change on each device. Click the wrenches to change these settings.

Please try it out:


If the device reaches max temp it will stop. Click the wrench to change the max temp. Is 75 C a good default max temperature?

Any feedback appreciated.

[SgtSpike]

Very cool!  Will definitely be giving this a shot when I receive mine...

How is the hashrate on the BFL's compared to cgminer?

[Fefox]

Very cool!  Will definitely be giving this a shot when I receive mine...

How is the hashrate on the BFL's compared to cgminer?

seems to be the same.  I get about 825 Mh for both miners.

[DrHaribo]

In theory it should be faster than cgminer and the other miners, because of faster work dispatch. In practice the difference is negligible (less than 1 Mhps per BFL single). This may prove more useful with the rig boxes.

Instead of checking whether the device is done with 10 ms pauses in between checks, it will first leave the device in peace until it gets close to done (cgminer does the same), then start 10 ms polling, and when it gets very close to done it starts 1 ms polling. This allows quick reaction pushing out new work once the device is idle. Right after it goes "ok, I'm all done, I think I'll just read the newspaper now" you have to detect that situation quickly and put it back to work. You can click the wrench and change the 10 ms and 1 ms values. You could even change the 1 ms to 0 ms. Running with 0 ms might be ok. It won't hog the CPU as much as the AMD drivers do/did. I just thought it might be a bit brutal for a default setting.

[Phraust]

Trying it out on OSX Lion (10.7.3) Server w/ 3x BitForce singles.  When I try to scan for FPGAs, it just crashes.  After it gets through with trying the Bluetooth modem (which fails), it dies. Mooing to try rebooting and giving it another shot.

[DrHaribo]

Trying it out on OSX Lion (10.7.3) Server w/ 3x BitForce singles.  When I try to scan for FPGAs, it just crashes.  After it gets through with trying the Bluetooth modem (which fails), it dies. Mooing to try rebooting and giving it another shot.

The whole app crashes, and possibly Java leaves a crash log on the desktop? Probably the RXTX library (for Java access to serial ports) that's doing it. I'm starting to hate that buggy thing.

Could you try adding them one by one using the menu to probe a specific port?

[SgtSpike]

In theory it should be faster than cgminer and the other miners, because of faster work dispatch. In practice the difference is negligible (less than 1 Mhps per BFL single). This may prove more useful with the rig boxes.

Instead of checking whether the device is done with 10 ms pauses in between checks, it will first leave the device in peace until it gets close to done (cgminer does the same), then start 10 ms polling, and when it gets very close to done it starts 1 ms polling. This allows quick reaction pushing out new work once the device is idle. Right after it goes "ok, I'm all done, I think I'll just read the newspaper now" you have to detect that situation quickly and put it back to work. You can click the wrench and change the 10 ms and 1 ms values. You could even change the 1 ms to 0 ms. Running with 0 ms might be ok. It won't hog the CPU as much as the AMD drivers do/did. I just thought it might be a bit brutal for a default setting.

Cool, looking forward to giving it a try!