Issues setting up a testnet node.

[CullerWhale]

Hello,

I am trying to synchronize with tesnet in order to participate in my Digital Currency Programming class. The next step in class is writinge python script to interact with the tesnet. I believe I do need a complete copy of the testnet or at the minimum a node that is synconrized. My instructructions were to use snap package using "$ sudo snap install bitcoin-core" which was successful and then "$ bitcoin-core.daemon -testnet -daemon" which never completes for me. I don't think my node is configured yet since it hasn't been successfully initialized yet after installation.

I did a complete factory reset on my computer and simply started over. I have a Aorus 5SE with windows 11. I am using VirtualBox 7.0.6 and Ubuntu 20.04.

My new virtual machine has 4GB of base memory, 4 CPUS, and the optical drive has 95GB. The equivalent of dynamic space adaptation is functioning. (I was recommended by my teacher to use 2GB, 2 CPUs, and 60 GB)

Before using "$sudo snap install bitcoin-core" and letting my computer run over night, "df" indicated my '/' directory had 15% of memory used. However, the default system information that prints at start up indicated 13.5% of 45.64GB for "/". This confused me since I don't recall configuring that number, nor the ability to change it.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZthIZ.jpg



This morning, my computer somehow went to sleep but the download appears to still be running, just very slowly. The session information indicates 0% guest activity and 50-75% VMM load of CPU usage. The results of "df" indicate 89% usage of my " / " directory. I ran it again after some time and the usage increased by 92 1K-Blocks. Is this abnormal?

https://i.stack.imgur.com/HayGT.jpg



https://i.stack.imgur.com/vxsta.jpg

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[LoyceV]

Since you're having "digital lessons", it's good to use the proper names:

the optical drive has 95GB.

An optical drive reads for instance DVDs. You're using a hard drive (or SSD).

"df" indicated my '/' directory had 15% of memory used.

"Memory" usually refers to RAM, this is storage space.

Quoting for your images to show up:

This morning, my computer somehow went to sleep but the download appears to still be running, just very slowly. The session information indicates 0% guest activity and 50-75% VMM load of CPU usage. The results of "df" indicate 89% usage of my " / " directory. I ran it again after some time and the usage increased by 92 1K-Blocks. Is this abnormal?

Some thoughts: syncing Bitcoin Core is very demanding to your system. Testnet is smaller, but still takes quite a while to sync. 4 GB RAM may be a bit low, and depending on your system a VM could slow it down significantly. I (personally) wouldn't want to run Linux in a VM under Windows, although it's possible. It sounds like using the worst of both worlds.

I recently installed a Testnet node following these instructions: [Guide] Solo mine testnet bitcoins with bfgminer, Bitcoin Core, and a CPU/GPU.

[NotATether]

Try increasing the disk capacity to 200GB, make it fixed size (for better performance), erase the previous blockchain data on the guest disk, and start over.

But then again, you can run testnet on your host without a VM, even if you have a mainnet node running. Is there any reason why you would rather refrain from doing that?