[ANN] Litecoin - a lite version of Bitcoin. Launched!

[coblee]

I've updated first post with some new information in the mining section.

[ripper234]

I've updated first post with some new information in the mining section.

...


https://github.com/ArtForz/cpuminer - Fastest but experimental

Can you give more details? Fastest by how much? "How much" experimental?

[coblee]

I've updated first post with some new information in the mining section.

...


https://github.com/ArtForz/cpuminer - Fastest but experimental

Can you give more details? Fastest by how much? "How much" experimental?

For me, it went from 1.8 khash/s to 2.2 khash/s. ArtForz has been working on it to perform better with scrypt. So it might crash and burn, but it shouldn't break your computer or anything.

[ripper234]

For me, it went from 1.8 khash/s to 2.2 khash/s. ArtForz has been working on it to perform better with scrypt. So it might crash and burn, but it shouldn't break your computer or anything.

Nice, that's a 20% increase. The risk is crashes, right ... but if it says it's doing X khash/s then it really is doing that, right?
Are there windows binaries available?

[coblee]

@Coblee

How about a daemon for Windows?

Building litecoind on Windows is a pain in the ass. I haven't used Windows in about 8 years. Yet I somehow managed to build the QT version of litecoin in a VM. I will ask around to see if anyone can help me with this.

[caston]

I am somewhat worried we will see a repeat of the i0 coin launch with this.
If you give people too much warning then they get the really big guns ready.

[ripper234]

I am somewhat worried we will see a repeat of the i0 coin launch with this.
If you give people too much warning then they get the really big guns ready.

What happened at the i0 coin? 51% attack?

BTW, do we have anyone with Slashdot connections to try and spread the word about this coin _before_ it's launched?
I agree this might not be newsworthy at this point, but the thing is ... the coin would be really fair if it had the widest distribution possible before launch.

It's been a while since anything Bitcoin has been slashdotted, perhaps it's time for a general unbiased review of the alt coins to appear on slashdot ... assuming unbiased opinions even exist.

[caston]

What happened at the i0 coin? 51% attack?

BTW, do we have anyone with Slashdot connections to try and spread the word about this coin _before_ it's launched?
I agree this might not be newsworthy at this point, but the thing is ... the coin would be really fair if it had the widest distribution possible before launch.

It's been a while since anything Bitcoin has been slashdotted, perhaps it's time for a general unbiased review of the alt coins to appear on slashdot ... assuming unbiased opinions even exist.

One of the really big miners was able get most of the coins and everyone else was just getting stales.

[ripper234]

What happened at the i0 coin? 51% attack?

BTW, do we have anyone with Slashdot connections to try and spread the word about this coin _before_ it's launched?
I agree this might not be newsworthy at this point, but the thing is ... the coin would be really fair if it had the widest distribution possible before launch.

It's been a while since anything Bitcoin has been slashdotted, perhaps it's time for a general unbiased review of the alt coins to appear on slashdot ... assuming unbiased opinions even exist.

One of the really big miners was able get most of the coins and everyone else was just getting stales.

Did they get more than their proportional share? Was this a real attack on the protocol, or something else? Or did that miner just focus on building his own chain and ignored all other chains, and having 51% built the longest chain, and effectively got more than his proportional share?

[coblee]

@Coblee

How about a daemon for Windows?

Building litecoind on Windows is a pain in the ass. I haven't used Windows in about 8 years. Yet I somehow managed to build the QT version of litecoin in a VM. I will ask around to see if anyone can help me with this.

Tell me about it, been trying for the past four hours to get a Windows daemon going.

Try this https://github.com/downloads/coblee/litecoin/litecoin-windows-daemon-10-09-2011.zip

[bulanula]

@Coblee

How about a daemon for Windows?

Building litecoind on Windows is a pain in the ass. I haven't used Windows in about 8 years. Yet I somehow managed to build the QT version of litecoin in a VM. I will ask around to see if anyone can help me with this.

Tell me about it, been trying for the past four hours to get a Windows daemon going.

Try this https://github.com/downloads/coblee/litecoin/litecoin-windows-daemon-10-09-2011.zip

So will this ScamCoin work on Intel too ? Probably not as it uses crappy scrypt shit algo.

[kano]

...
Source code

The source code is here:
   https://github.com/coblee/litecoin

This is based on the latest Bitcoin code. You can either build the daemon version (litecoind) or you can build the QT gui version. See the build docs.

Similar to Bitcoin, you may want to create a litecoin.conf file here:
    Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Litecoin
    Win7: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Litecoin
    Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Litecoin
    Unix: ~/.litecoin

To run against Testnet, you need to put "testnet=1" in your litecoin.conf file. Without it, the client will crash.

Port is 19333 for Testnet and 9333 for the real release. And default RPC port is 9332.
...

Where was this exactly forked from?
Have you tried to generate actual blocks with it yet using a miner?
I'll track down something that I noticed a bit odd once I know exactly where it came from.

[coblee]

...
Source code

The source code is here:
   https://github.com/coblee/litecoin

This is based on the latest Bitcoin code. You can either build the daemon version (litecoind) or you can build the QT gui version. See the build docs.

Similar to Bitcoin, you may want to create a litecoin.conf file here:
    Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Litecoin
    Win7: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Litecoin
    Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Litecoin
    Unix: ~/.litecoin

To run against Testnet, you need to put "testnet=1" in your litecoin.conf file. Without it, the client will crash.

Port is 19333 for Testnet and 9333 for the real release. And default RPC port is 9332.
...

Where was this exactly forked from?
Have you tried to generate actual blocks with it yet using a miner?
I'll track down something that I noticed a bit odd once I know exactly where it came from.

It's forked from Bitcoin code base. Mining works.

[kano]

...
Source code

The source code is here:
   https://github.com/coblee/litecoin

This is based on the latest Bitcoin code. You can either build the daemon version (litecoind) or you can build the QT gui version. See the build docs.

Similar to Bitcoin, you may want to create a litecoin.conf file here:
    Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Litecoin
    Win7: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Litecoin
    Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Litecoin
    Unix: ~/.litecoin

To run against Testnet, you need to put "testnet=1" in your litecoin.conf file. Without it, the client will crash.

Port is 19333 for Testnet and 9333 for the real release. And default RPC port is 9332.
...

Where was this exactly forked from?
Have you tried to generate actual blocks with it yet using a miner?
I'll track down something that I noticed a bit odd once I know exactly where it came from.

It's forked from Bitcoin code base. Mining works.

Hmm OK, in 0.4.0 the scriptSig (coinbase) code has changed so they look different now.
My mistake.

[Bobnova]

How do you plan to convince an exchange to open when you can't give them a stack of coins to start with?

[ripper234]

OK, here is the testing I've done:

Client
Downloaded client for Windows, setup was easy, it seems to work.
With gen = 1, miner is 100% CPU on my 8 cores, solved a block on testnet within a few minutes.
How do you control the number of threads it's using to mine?
I assume there currently isn't a way to know the hash rate with the GUI client, right?

Encrypted wallet.
I like the Bitcoin UI with the progress bar when downloading blocks (a beta feature of Bitcoin, not invented for Litecoin).
Did a wallet backup/restore test, works well.

First bug (I don't think it was introduce in LiteCoin):
1. I mined my first two blocks.
2. Tried to transfer 10 LTC to my own address.
3. Failed because of not enough confirmation "Mined balanced will be available in 118 blocks"
4. Now, the bug: I see 3 as Number of Transactions in the overview tab, but I actually have only the 2 solved blocks.
5. This persisted even after a restart of the client ...
6. Another restart - now I see 4 as Number of Transactions, still only 2 actual transactions.

Where did the 3rd transaction come from? Is it a Bitcoin or LiteCoin bug? Should I report this on Bitcoin github?

Daemon
On first startup:

The program can't start because of libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

The daemon should be compiled with either -static-libgcc or -static flags. As a side note, you might want to take a look at How do I build Bitcoin source in Windows 7 (haven't looked it it myself, but it might be useful).

Downloaded lateset MinGW as a safe place to find said dll. This took some time.

Copied the dll to the daemon's folder, and now another dll was requested. Instead, added c:\MinGW to path. That did not help, so I ended up copying libstdc++-6.dll to Litecoin daemon folder as well. This seems to have worked. litecoind taking 99%, so I assume it's mining.

CTRL-C on the litecoind resulted in a crash.

I just noticed these lines in the config:
#Only uncomment this if you are running litecoind (not Litecoin QT)
#daemon=1

Not sure what are the consequences that I didn't. Tried it and it didn't resolve the crash.

Miner - seems to be the preferred way to go, as the above methods don't give any indication of hashrate.

Tenebrix - I downloaded the Windows pack a few days ago and mined TBX successfully. It's really packaged beautifully (+1 to Locust), and It Just Works™ for TBX. I have no idea, however, how to configure it to mine LTC (on testnet or realnet).
ArtForz/cpuminer was said to be faster by 20% on some machine, I would like to check it out, but would appreciate Windows binaries if those could be arranged.

Also, I understand that the builds compiled on linux might be somewhat less efficient than builds compiled on Windows, or with some other optimizations. Is there anyone who can provide optimized Windows binaries, with:
1. Reports of hashrate like Tenebrix's miner
2. Ability to configure # of threads (I guess this is included, I just haven't found it)
?

That's it for tonight. I would hope that the optimized Windows miner issue is settled before launch - we have a chance to make this a really fair coin, let's not screw it up.

@coblee - can you put the relevant information from my post in the first post in this thread?

To all, a good night, back to mining TBX for now, but can't wait to switch.

[froggy]

Litecoin was failing to build for me (on Windows Vista 32 bit).  QT compiler and was giving a load of errors:
 

Code:

c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../../mingw32/bin/ld.exe: warning: auto-importing has been activated without --enable-auto-import specified on the command line.
This should work unless it involves constant data structures referencing symbols from auto-imported DLLs.
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xee0): undefined reference to `CreateDCA@16'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xeef): undefined reference to `CreateCompatibleDC@4'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xf08): undefined reference to `GetDeviceCaps@8'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xf23): undefined reference to `GetDeviceCaps@8'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xf44): undefined reference to `CreateCompatibleBitmap@12'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xf5b): undefined reference to `SelectObject@8'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xf7e): undefined reference to `GetObjectA@12'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x1024): undefined reference to `BitBlt@36'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x103b): undefined reference to `GetBitmapBits@12'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x10b0): undefined reference to `SelectObject@8'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x10bb): undefined reference to `DeleteObject@4'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x10c8): undefined reference to `DeleteDC@4'
c:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x10d5): undefined reference to `DeleteDC@4'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
mingw32-make[1]: *** [debug\litecoin-qt.exe] Error 1
mingw32-make: *** [debug] Error 2
The process "C:\QtSDK\mingw\bin\mingw32-make.exe" exited with code 2.
Error while building project litecoin-qt (target: Desktop)
When executing build step 'Make'

I fixed it by adding -lgdi32 to one of the LIBS lines near the bottom of litecoin-qt.pro, so one of my lines now looks like

Code:

LIBS += -lssl -lcrypto -ldb_cxx$$BDB_LIB_SUFFIX -lgdi32 

rather than just

Code:

LIBS += -lssl -lcrypto -ldb_cxx$$BDB_LIB_SUFFIX 

Interestingly, for some reason it seems to matter where I put the  -lgdi32 .  If I try

Code:

LIBS +=  -lgdi32  -lssl -lcrypto -ldb_cxx$$BDB_LIB_SUFFIX

...compilation fails again.  Strange!

Hope this helps.

[bulanula]

We don't need more of these scrypt based scam chains. Please stop. Thank you ! BCX pls attack this crap.

[coblee]

!!! IMPORTANT UPDATE !!!

In order to prevent what's known as the Zeitgeist2 51% attack where the attacker gets to change the difficulty at will and generate a ton of blocks at a low difficulty, I've released a mandatory update to the code and the clients. Please check the first post and download the new client. Or if you are building from source, do a "git pull" and recompile.

Here's the actual fix:
    https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/commit/b1be77210970a6ceb3680412cc3d2f0dd4ca8fb9

Thanks to Lolcust and ArtForz for it.

If you do not update, your client will likely fork a new chain at the 2nd difficulty change (block 4032) due to a bad difficulty retarget. You don't want that! So please update your clients. And sorry again for this.

Also, I've fixed the miner binary for Windows. Please download the new miner binary. Thanks!

[coblee]

Please vote in the poll: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47418.0

Looks like the last 2 options are neck to neck. If you voted for the first or second option, you can change your vote if either 3rd or 4th options work better for you.