BAMT version 0.5 - Easy USB based mining Linux with farm wide management tools

[Isokivi]

I'd like to report a stability issue in bamt 0.5a:
Using the exact same settings as I did in the latest 0.4 version I cant get the only rig I have tried Bamt 0.5 in to remain stable, as Im writing this im writing the 0.4 Image back to my usb-stick.

The rig contains one 5870, the clocks Im running are core 970, stock voltage, mem clock at 300. Im using phoenix miner, kernel params BFI_INT VECTORS FASTLOOP=false AGGRESSION=8 (8 because im pointing it at P2pool). Every time (twice so far) that I head out to work or to sleep I come back to find the rig has hung up, wont respond to anything or cant get any imange on it's display.

What other relevant information can I post to help identify the issue ?

[lodcrappo]

I'd like to report a stability issue in bamt 0.5a:
Using the exact same settings as I did in the latest 0.4 version I cant get the only rig I have tried Bamt 0.5 in to remain stable, as Im writing this im writing the 0.4 Image back to my usb-stick.

The rig contains one 5870, the clocks Im running are core 970, stock voltage, mem clock at 300. Im using phoenix miner, kernel params BFI_INT VECTORS FASTLOOP=false AGGRESSION=8 (8 because im pointing it at P2pool). Every time (twice so far) that I head out to work or to sleep I come back to find the rig has hung up, wont respond to anything or cant get any imange on it's display.

What other relevant information can I post to help identify the issue ?

I really don't know.

0.5 is the same mining software, same overclocking software, same drivers, same SDK....

I have no idea why or how it would behave any differently in 0.5 than it did in 0.4.
It is the same software.

[Isokivi]

I'd like to report a stability issue in bamt 0.5a:
Using the exact same settings as I did in the latest 0.4 version I cant get the only rig I have tried Bamt 0.5 in to remain stable, as Im writing this im writing the 0.4 Image back to my usb-stick.

The rig contains one 5870, the clocks Im running are core 970, stock voltage, mem clock at 300. Im using phoenix miner, kernel params BFI_INT VECTORS FASTLOOP=false AGGRESSION=8 (8 because im pointing it at P2pool). Every time (twice so far) that I head out to work or to sleep I come back to find the rig has hung up, wont respond to anything or cant get any imange on it's display.

What other relevant information can I post to help identify the issue ?

I really don't know.

0.5 is the same mining software, same overclocking software, same drivers, same SDK....

I have no idea why or how it would behave any differently in 0.5 than it did in 0.4.
It is the same software.

Also on a sidenote the exactly same rig, with the exact same setup Is providing a slightly higher Mhs (according to GPUmon) in bamt 0.4. Were talking 1% here, 2-5mhs more, GPUmon has always shown slight variance between ticks to me. Currently it's hashing away at 432.25-439.9 Mhs.

Edit: It just occured to me that theres one difference in the setup. In 0.4 I use phatk, where as in 0.5 I used the reccomended phatk2. Any toughts on this ?

[lodcrappo]

I'd like to report a stability issue in bamt 0.5a:
Using the exact same settings as I did in the latest 0.4 version I cant get the only rig I have tried Bamt 0.5 in to remain stable, as Im writing this im writing the 0.4 Image back to my usb-stick.

The rig contains one 5870, the clocks Im running are core 970, stock voltage, mem clock at 300. Im using phoenix miner, kernel params BFI_INT VECTORS FASTLOOP=false AGGRESSION=8 (8 because im pointing it at P2pool). Every time (twice so far) that I head out to work or to sleep I come back to find the rig has hung up, wont respond to anything or cant get any imange on it's display.

What other relevant information can I post to help identify the issue ?

I really don't know.

0.5 is the same mining software, same overclocking software, same drivers, same SDK....

I have no idea why or how it would behave any differently in 0.5 than it did in 0.4.
It is the same software.

Also on a sidenote the exactly same rig, with the exact same setup Is providing a slightly higher Mhs (according to GPUmon) in bamt 0.4. Were talking 1% here, 2-5mhs more, GPUmon has always shown slight variance between ticks to me. Currently it's hashing away at 432.25-439.9 Mhs.

Edit: It just occured to me that theres one difference in the setup. In 0.4 I use phatk, where as in 0.5 I used the reccomended phatk2. Any toughts on this ?

*sigh...*

a note to anyone reading this

PLEASE

do not tell me "the exact same thing that works on X doesn't work on Y" if you aren't doing the exact same thing.  I cannot help you without accurate information.  Even worse, inaccurate information leads to bad conclusions that can effect the support other people get.

So far, the only repeatable and verified "issues" with 0.5 have been:

2 cases of people not realizing that the pound sign is a comment in Linux

2 cases of typos

1 case of unknown reason but that went away after installing fix #1.

(and a verified broken fixer, which is indeed a pretty silly bug to have)

(PS - This is out of hundreds of downloads)

I understand that it is frustrating when things don't work, but I just cannot guess at what you may have changed and not mentioned.  

Anyway.. more to the point, of course if you change kernels you will very often see a variance in hash rate and very possibly cause instability.  Changing kernels can be a drastic move when you are teetering on the edge of crashing your cards anyway.  Each kernel will have a different heat to performance to stability ratio.  phatk2 is generally accepted as the best kernel to use for most GPUs.  However, it may not be the best for every combination of GPU and clock rates.  Also, you may have to adjust your clock rates to get the best performance out of a new kernel.  You cannot just drop a new kernel in and expect it to have the same characteristics or work very well without tuning your GPUs for it!

[Isokivi]

I'd like to report a stability issue in bamt 0.5a:
Using the exact same settings as I did in the latest 0.4 version I cant get the only rig I have tried Bamt 0.5 in to remain stable, as Im writing this im writing the 0.4 Image back to my usb-stick.

The rig contains one 5870, the clocks Im running are core 970, stock voltage, mem clock at 300. Im using phoenix miner, kernel params BFI_INT VECTORS FASTLOOP=false AGGRESSION=8 (8 because im pointing it at P2pool). Every time (twice so far) that I head out to work or to sleep I come back to find the rig has hung up, wont respond to anything or cant get any imange on it's display.

What other relevant information can I post to help identify the issue ?

I really don't know.

0.5 is the same mining software, same overclocking software, same drivers, same SDK....

I have no idea why or how it would behave any differently in 0.5 than it did in 0.4.
It is the same software.

Also on a sidenote the exactly same rig, with the exact same setup Is providing a slightly higher Mhs (according to GPUmon) in bamt 0.4. Were talking 1% here, 2-5mhs more, GPUmon has always shown slight variance between ticks to me. Currently it's hashing away at 432.25-439.9 Mhs.

Edit: It just occured to me that theres one difference in the setup. In 0.4 I use phatk, where as in 0.5 I used the reccomended phatk2. Any toughts on this ?

*sigh...*

a note to anyone reading this

PLEASE

do not tell me "the exact same thing that works on X doesn't work on Y" if you aren't doing the exact same thing.  I cannot help you without accurate information.  Even worse, inaccurate information leads to bad conclusions that can effect the support other people get.

So far, the only repeatable and verified "issues" with 0.5 have been:

2 cases of people not realizing that the pound sign is a comment in Linux

2 cases of typos

1 case of unknown reason but that went away after installing fix #1.

(and a verified broken fixer, which is indeed a pretty silly bug to have)

(PS - This is out of hundreds of downloads)

I understand that it is frustrating when things don't work, but I just cannot guess at what you may have changed and not mentioned.  

Anyway.. more to the point, of course if you change kernels you will very often see a variance in hash rate and very possibly cause instability.  Changing kernels can be a drastic move when you are teetering on the edge of crashing your cards anyway.  Each kernel will have a different heat to performance to stability ratio.  phatk2 is generally accepted as the best kernel to use for most GPUs.  However, it may not be the best for every combination of GPU and clock rates.  Also, you may have to adjust your clock rates to get the best performance out of a new kernel.  You cannot just drop a new kernel in and expect it to have the same characteristics or work very well without tuning your GPUs for it!

I understand it's frustrating getting mislead with innaccurate reports and do apologize for mine. I assure you I triple checked the configs in comparison before posting, but sadly it was only while sitting on the toilet that the difference of configurations occured to me. That phatk2 kernerl was the only real incentive I had to swap out from 0.4, guess Im going to stick with it for the time being.

Imho you need to understand or appreciate the fact that a fair amount of the ppl using or even considering using Bamt migth be next-to illiterate when it comes to linux, myself for one. Up to until fairly recentley I have found bamt to be slightly easyer to use than P2pool for example ,which I managed to eventually do. For your software to be more-wideley used and your support donations to grow alongside it you propably should make attempts at making setting things up and using it easyer, here are my two bitcents on the issue:
-We like dropbox style menus, we like mouse tooltips giving us hints, we'd propably love invalid syntaxes in configs to "magically" turn red and start blinking or something.
-We (and you) might benefit from being discouraged on installing new versions among the first users.

[lodcrappo]

I understand it's frustrating getting mislead with innaccurate reports and do apologize for mine. I assure you I triple checked the configs in comparison before posting, but sadly it was only while sitting on the toilet that the difference of configurations occured to me. That phatk2 kernerl was the only real incentive I had to swap out from 0.4, guess Im going to stick with it for the time being.

phatk2 is available in 0.4 anyway.   0.4 and 0.5 use the same mining software, same version, and so have the exact same options available.

Imho you need to understand or appreciate the fact that a fair amount of the ppl using or even considering using Bamt migth be next-to illiterate when it comes to linux, myself for one. Up to until fairly recentley I have found bamt to be slightly easyer to use than P2pool for example ,which I managed to eventually do. For your software to be more-wideley used and your support donations to grow alongside it you propably should make attempts at making setting things up and using it easyer, here are my two bitcents on the issue:
-We like dropbox style menus, we like mouse tooltips giving us hints, we'd propably love invalid syntaxes in configs to "magically" turn red and start blinking or something.
-We (and you) might benefit from being discouraged on installing new versions among the first users.

Unfortunately, a "kinder, gentler" BAMT (or frankly any easy to use open source project for bitcoin folks) is highly unlikely.

The reason for this is quite simple:  It is a lot of work to anticipate every weird thing someone might do, to be a step ahead of everything they won't understand, etc, etc.    Where it might take 10 hours to implement feature A, it will take 30 or 40 more to make the same thing idiot proof.

In the commercial world a programmer can justify putting that kind of effort in, but the bitcoin community simply is not supporting their open source devs well enough that any of us could afford to make that kind of software (I apologize if I speak wrongly for anyone, but I do talk with several others guys from various projects and it's all pretty pathetic).  I've never made even $1 per hour on any of the work I've put into BAMT.   No way I'd put in the time to put training wheels on it, I already feel foolish for the time I spend now.

[jamesg]

Hi lodcrappo,

Did you compile cgminer support for BFL singles into the BAMT version of cgminer?

Thanks,
James

Edited for clarification above.

[lodcrappo]

Hi lodcrappo,

Did you compile cgminer support for BFL singles into the BAMT version of cgminer?

Thanks,
James

Edited for clarification above.

0.4 no
0.5 yes

completely untested of course, but cgminer built and did not report errors.

[jamesg]

Hi lodcrappo,

Did you compile cgminer support for BFL singles into the BAMT version of cgminer?

Thanks,
James

Edited for clarification above.

0.4 no
0.5 yes

completely untested of course, but cgminer built and did not report errors.

PERFECT!

I didn't get a chance to try out 0.5 yesterday so i'll be going to the DC later today hopefully. Video to come!

[malevolent]

I know there are issues with usb boot on gigabyte boards, especially newer ones so I'd like to ask: has anyone tried with MA790X-UD3P? I have a 965P-S3 which runs fine but can buy the MA790X-UD3P quite cheap. I want to be sure I''ll be able to run bamt on it.

I wonder if this helps in case it doesn't?

http://chromasoft.blogspot.com/2010/10/solving-dreaded-gigabyte-wont-boot-from.html

or are there specific BIOS version that will work?

I also wondered if anyone tried alternative boot managers? Plop or sth like that?

[lodcrappo]

I know there are issues with usb boot on gigabyte boards, especially newer ones so I'd like to ask: has anyone tried with MA790X-UD3P? I have a 965P-S3 which runs fine but can buy the MA790X-UD3P quite cheap. I want to be sure I''ll be able to run bamt on it.

I wonder if this helps in case it doesn't?

http://chromasoft.blogspot.com/2010/10/solving-dreaded-gigabyte-wont-boot-from.html

or are there specific BIOS version that will work?

I also wondered if anyone tried alternative boot managers? Plop or sth like that?

Many have thought they found the final solution to the dreaded gigabyte problem, but always they find a solution that works only in some cases on their specific board and assume they finally solved the problem, never realizing that there are multiple issues and no universal solution except this:

never ever buy gigabyte if you want to boot from USB

[jamesg]

Ok. I have BAMT 0.5 setup on a single rig and it was very straight forward. Awesome!

Bad news. When I add the -scan-serial option to the cgminer config and try to restart the mining process, the start process dies. I'm assuming this is because of one of the following reasons.

- cgminer 2.2.7 does not work for some reason with BFL stuff.
- cgminer does not work with debian for some reason.

I am going to have to get with BFL to see if I can get some answers around what linux distros they have been testing with.

I'll keep you up-to-date.

[lodcrappo]

Ok. I have BAMT 0.5 setup on a single rig and it was very straight forward. Awesome!

Bad news. When I add the -scan-serial option to the cgminer config and try to restart the mining process, the start process dies. I'm assuming this is because of one of the following reasons.

- cgminer 2.2.7 does not work for some reason with BFL stuff.
- cgminer does not work with debian for some reason.

I am going to have to get with BFL to see if I can get some answers around what linux distros they have been testing with.

I'll keep you up-to-date.

I don't have anything to test with here, so hopefully they know what is needed.  Maybe some module for the serial interface?

At one point I thought there was a mining program that came with the BFLs, and that was their recommended client.  Did this change?  If not, probably should get that working before trying more.

[jamesg]

Ok. I have BAMT 0.5 setup on a single rig and it was very straight forward. Awesome!

Bad news. When I add the -scan-serial option to the cgminer config and try to restart the mining process, the start process dies. I'm assuming this is because of one of the following reasons.

- cgminer 2.2.7 does not work for some reason with BFL stuff.
- cgminer does not work with debian for some reason.

I am going to have to get with BFL to see if I can get some answers around what linux distros they have been testing with.

I'll keep you up-to-date.

I don't have anything to test with here, so hopefully they know what is needed.  Maybe some module for the serial interface?

At one point I thought there was a mining program that came with the BFLs, and that was their recommended client.  Did this change?  If not, probably should get that working before trying more.

The ufasoft miner also works with BFL singles. I have cgminer 2.2.7 working with the single on windows.

If you know if any modules missing from BAMT for the serial interface, it may be good to add them and I'll give it a try.

[lodcrappo]

Ok. I have BAMT 0.5 setup on a single rig and it was very straight forward. Awesome!

Bad news. When I add the -scan-serial option to the cgminer config and try to restart the mining process, the start process dies. I'm assuming this is because of one of the following reasons.

- cgminer 2.2.7 does not work for some reason with BFL stuff.
- cgminer does not work with debian for some reason.

I am going to have to get with BFL to see if I can get some answers around what linux distros they have been testing with.

I'll keep you up-to-date.

I don't have anything to test with here, so hopefully they know what is needed.  Maybe some module for the serial interface?

At one point I thought there was a mining program that came with the BFLs, and that was their recommended client.  Did this change?  If not, probably should get that working before trying more.

The ufasoft miner also works with BFL singles. I have cgminer 2.2.7 working with the single on windows.

If you know if any modules missing from BAMT for the serial interface, it may be good to add them and I'll give it a try.

I could not begin to guess.

[jamesg]

I could not begin to guess.

I can see the single with the command

Code:

lsusb

And it is on bus 001 device 005 so I don't think it's BAMT. But what the fuck do I know....

[lodcrappo]

I could not begin to guess.

I can see the single with the command

Code:

lsusb

And it is on bus 001 device 005 so I don't think it's BAMT. But what the fuck do I know....

those are good signs.  there may still be some additional stuff needed, or maybe not.  no idea.

debian is a lot like ubuntu (well.. ubuntu is based off debian actually, or was in the beginning, dunno anymore) and cgminer seems to release ubuntu binaries, so I would assume thats a tested platform and would be very similar to what a BAMT rig looks like.

hopefully its something simple

[DeathAndTaxes]

Ok. I have BAMT 0.5 setup on a single rig and it was very straight forward. Awesome!

Bad news. When I add the -scan-serial option to the cgminer config and try to restart the mining process, the start process dies. I'm assuming this is because of one of the following reasons.

- cgminer 2.2.7 does not work for some reason with BFL stuff.
- cgminer does not work with debian for some reason.

I am going to have to get with BFL to see if I can get some answers around what linux distros they have been testing with.

I'll keep you up-to-date.

I have been having a lot of issues w/ cgminer & 0.5.  You may want to try installing cgminer 2.2.7 on BAMT 0.4b.  You will need a 32bit binary.  If you search the cgminer thread there is a link someone was kind enough to compile and host it for me.

[lodcrappo]

I have been having a lot of issues w/ cgminer & 0.5. 

This is not helpful.  What problems, when do they happen, what makes them happen, etc?

I should never have given this image the label "0.5". 

It seems to be giving people the impression that there is some difference between it and the last fix for 0.4 that simply isn't there.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I have been having a lot of issues w/ cgminer & 0.5.

This is not helpful.  What problems, when do they happen, what makes them happen, etc?

I should never have given this image the label "0.5". 

It seems to be giving people the impression that there is some difference between it and the last fix for 0.4 that simply isn't there.

Nothing changed?  Kernel? drivers? etc?

Anyways:
about 30% of the time cgminer fails to start on reboot.  rebooting again or starting manually has no problem.
sometimes when going into gpumon and pressing 0 I get "no screen matching cgminer found" but if I quit cgminer and do a screen -r it loads just fine (and yes the screen is named "cgminer").
BAMT reporting tools (gpumon, mgpumon, web gpumon, etc) show no data from cgminer (shares, MH/s, etc are 0).

Sorry I can't help more but at this point using 0.4b works flawlessly so I didn't dive deeper into it yet.  Maybe next weekend.