LinuxCoin A lightweight Debian based OS with everything ready to go.

[kjj]

Nifty progress today.

Code: (/home/user/.config/autostart/auto.desktop)

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=coin
Exec=lxterminal --command "/home/user/start.sh"
Terminal=true

Code: (/home/user/start.sh)

#!/bin/bash
xhost +
echo $DISPLAY > /home/user/.display
lxterminal --title miner1_start --command "/home/user/miner1.sh"
lxterminal --title miner2_start --command "/home/user/miner2.sh"

Code: (/home/user/miner1.sh)

#!/bin/bash
cd /opt/miners/phoenix
./phoenix.py -u http://__USER__:__PASSWORD__@__PROXY/POOL__:__PORT__/ -k phatk BFI_INT VECTORS FASTLOOP=false AGGRESSION=11 DEVICE=0

Code: (/home/user/miner2.sh)

#!/bin/bash
cd /opt/miners/phoenix
./phoenix.py -u http://__USER__:__PASSWORD__@__PROXY/POOL__:__PORT__/ -k phatk BFI_INT VECTORS FASTLOOP=false AGGRESSION=11 DEVICE=1

Code: (/home/user/restart.sh)

#!/bin/bash
export DISPLAY=`cat /home/user/.display`
pc=`ps waxuf | grep miner1.sh -c`
ld=`aticonfig --odgc --adapter=0 | grep "GPU load" | cut -c 30-35 | cut -d % -f 1`
if [[ $pc -lt 2 ||  $ld -lt 50 ]] ; then
 killall -KILL miner1.sh
 nohup lxterminal --title miner1 --command /home/user/miner1.sh &
fi
pc=`ps waxuf | grep miner2.sh -c`
ld=`aticonfig --odgc --adapter=1 | grep "GPU load" | cut -c 30-35 | cut -d % -f 1`
if [[ $pc -lt 2 ||  $ld -lt 50 ]] ; then
 killall -KILL miner2.sh
 nohup lxterminal --title miner2 --command /home/user/miner2.sh &
fi

Code: (crontab -e)

1,11,21,31,41,51 * * * * /home/user/restart.sh

miner1.sh and miner2.sh are owned by root.root, and are setuid/setgid (mode 6755) while the others are owned by user.user and are mode 0755.

Very simple to extend this to multiple miners, and it will restart any that are crashed or hung.

[bitcool]

Sorry kinda new at this.  Isn't persistent mode supposed to save the things onto your flash drive during your session instead of a total clean slate every time you reboot your computer?  If not then how do i save things to my flash without having them erased.  Thanks I'm pretty new to linux but learning very fast especially with your linuxcoin.

Peace
Mike

Didn't he talk about creating a writeable partition with fdisk:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=7374.msg136868#msg136868
What made you think it's not saving things onto your flash drive?

[kjj]

It has been mentioned before in this thread, but if you are using unetbootin to write the ISO to the flash drive, you need to edit the syslinux.cfg file in the root directory and add "persistent" to the first append line.  Unetbootin overrules the boot configuration in the ISO and uses its own.

The step by step sequence that I've been using is:

1) plug new flash drive into a linux box (an existing one, or write the linuxcoin ISO to a CD and boot that for this step)
2) find the device name, and unmount it if it automounted.
3) use fdisk to create 2 partitions.  Partition 1 is 1GB, type "b" or "c", active.  Partition 2 is all remaining space, type 83, not active.
4) use mkfs.ext4 to create a filesystem on partition 2 (probably /dev/sda2 or /dev/sdb2) (use -L live-rw)
5) plug the drive into a windows box
6) go to disk management, format partition 1.
7) use unetbootin to write the ISO
8 ) edit syslinux.cfg
9) remove the flash drive from windows, boot the new box with the drive.

Optional steps if you are doing a lot of boxes:

10) accept the AMD license
11) install ntp
12) copy over my startup and restart scripts (generic versions with CHANGEME as the worker name)
13) shut down, boot from the CD again, and use dd to clone this prepared drive onto other drives

[trueimage]

I'm just trying this for the first time, and when I try to boot it just sits at "Verifying DMI Pool Data.........."

It detects the usb stick as USB-HDD0 and I've set that as the boot device?

The rest looks straight forward, I just can't get it to boot lol.

[kjj]

Is the first partition marked active?  What did you use to write the ISO to it?

[CydeWeys]

Hey everyone!  I'm going to try out Linuxcoin tonight and I've been reading through all the helpful posts on here.  I do have one quick question.  I run Ubuntu on my main computer and I've used the usb-creator application to write a CD ISO to a bootable flash drive (including with a persistence partition).  Has anyone had any luck using this same tool to write Linuxcoin to a USB stick, or should I follow the unetbootin instructions?

[trueimage]

Is the first partition marked active?  What did you use to write the ISO to it?

unetbootin for mac os

[hugolp]

It has been mentioned before in this thread, but if you are using unetbootin to write the ISO to the flash drive, you need to edit the syslinux.cfg file in the root directory and add "persistent" to the first append line.  Unetbootin overrules the boot configuration in the ISO and uses its own.

The step by step sequence that I've been using is:

1) plug new flash drive into a linux box (an existing one, or write the linuxcoin ISO to a CD and boot that for this step)
2) find the device name, and unmount it if it automounted.
3) use fdisk to create 2 partitions.  Partition 1 is 1GB, type "b" or "c", active.  Partition 2 is all remaining space, type 83, not active.
4) use mkfs.ext4 to create a filesystem on partition 2 (probably /dev/sda2 or /dev/sdb2)
5) plug the drive into a windows box
6) go to disk management, format partition 1.
7) use unetbootin to write the ISO
8 ) edit syslinux.cfg
9) remove the flash drive from windows, boot the new box with the drive.

Optional steps if you are doing a lot of boxes:

10) accept the AMD license
11) install ntp
12) copy over my startup and restart scripts (generic versions with CHANGEME as the worker name)
13) shut down, boot from the CD again, and use dd to clone this prepared drive onto other drives

Why do you need to format from windows? Why not use unetbootin from linux also?

[kjj]

It has been mentioned before in this thread, but if you are using unetbootin to write the ISO to the flash drive, you need to edit the syslinux.cfg file in the root directory and add "persistent" to the first append line.  Unetbootin overrules the boot configuration in the ISO and uses its own.

The step by step sequence that I've been using is:

1) plug new flash drive into a linux box (an existing one, or write the linuxcoin ISO to a CD and boot that for this step)
2) find the device name, and unmount it if it automounted.
3) use fdisk to create 2 partitions.  Partition 1 is 1GB, type "b" or "c", active.  Partition 2 is all remaining space, type 83, not active.
4) use mkfs.ext4 to create a filesystem on partition 2 (probably /dev/sda2 or /dev/sdb2)
5) plug the drive into a windows box
6) go to disk management, format partition 1.
7) use unetbootin to write the ISO
8 ) edit syslinux.cfg
9) remove the flash drive from windows, boot the new box with the drive.

Optional steps if you are doing a lot of boxes:

10) accept the AMD license
11) install ntp
12) copy over my startup and restart scripts (generic versions with CHANGEME as the worker name)
13) shut down, boot from the CD again, and use dd to clone this prepared drive onto other drives

Why do you need to format from windows? Why not use unetbootin from linux also?

The ISO was sitting on a SMB share that was easier for me to get to from my workstation, and I find just about everything about Ubuntu to be obnoxious, particularly the GUI, so I try not to spend any more time with it than necessary.  So, it was just easier for me to do everything on the Linux command line and in Windows.

The format was done in Windows because back in the 90s bootable FAT filesystems made under Linux were unreliable in Windows, and I was using unetbootin from Windows.  Presumably mkfs has been fixed, but old habits die hard.

My steps worked for me the six times that I did it.  I'm sure there are many other ways to get this working, but I can't offer to help with any of them.

[evlew]

Nifty progress today.

Code: (/home/user/.config/autostart/auto.desktop)

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=coin
Exec=lxterminal --command "/home/user/start.sh"
Terminal=true

Code: (/home/user/start.sh)

#!/bin/bash
xhost +
echo $DISPLAY > /home/user/.display
lxterminal --title miner1_start --command "/home/user/miner1.sh"
lxterminal --title miner2_start --command "/home/user/miner2.sh"

Code: (/home/user/miner1.sh)

#!/bin/bash
cd /opt/miners/phoenix
./phoenix.py -u http://__USER__:__PASSWORD__@__PROXY/POOL__:__PORT__/ -k phatk BFI_INT VECTORS FASTLOOP=false AGGRESSION=11 DEVICE=0

Code: (/home/user/miner2.sh)

#!/bin/bash
cd /opt/miners/phoenix
./phoenix.py -u http://__USER__:__PASSWORD__@__PROXY/POOL__:__PORT__/ -k phatk BFI_INT VECTORS FASTLOOP=false AGGRESSION=11 DEVICE=1

Code: (/home/user/restart.sh)

#!/bin/bash
export DISPLAY=`cat /home/user/.display`
pc=`ps waxuf | grep miner1.sh -c`
ld=`aticonfig --odgc --adapter=0 | grep "GPU load" | cut -c 30-35 | cut -d % -f 1`
if [[ $pc -lt 2 ||  $ld -lt 50 ]] ; then
 killall -KILL miner1.sh
 nohup lxterminal --title miner1 --command /home/user/miner1.sh &
fi
pc=`ps waxuf | grep miner2.sh -c`
ld=`aticonfig --odgc --adapter=1 | grep "GPU load" | cut -c 30-35 | cut -d % -f 1`
if [[ $pc -lt 2 ||  $ld -lt 50 ]] ; then
 killall -KILL miner2.sh
 nohup lxterminal --title miner2 --command /home/user/miner2.sh &
fi

Code: (crontab -e)

1,11,21,31,41,51 * * * * /home/user/restart.sh

miner1.sh and miner2.sh are owned by root.root, and are setuid/setgid (mode 6755) while the others are owned by user.user and are mode 0755.

Very simple to extend this to multiple miners, and it will restart any that are crashed or hung.

This is really great stuff kjj, thanks so much for saving me the time.  On wednesday night I should be able to implement this.  Can you explain to me the last code? the crontab -e

the restart script just kills the terminal and restarts it if the cpu load falls a certain amount? Do you think this will work well enough to prevent from having multiple pools?  I guess not if it work queue goes empty or pool servers go down.  So perhaps its still best to use 2-3 pools for redundancy?

have you found a way to monitor them remotely?

[kjj]

This is really great stuff kjj, thanks so much for saving me the time.  On wednesday night I should be able to implement this.  Can you explain to me the last code? the crontab -e

the restart script just kills the terminal and restarts it if the cpu load falls a certain amount?

have you found a way to monitor them remotely?

crontab -e is the command to edit the user crontab.  You need to run that command, which starts an editor, so you can add that line.  Must be done while logged in as user not as root, as in use LXTerminal from the Accessories menu, not Root Terminal.

The restart script checks for two possible error conditions.  First, if the script named miner1.sh (or miner2.sh, or minerX.sh) is no longer running.  Second, if the load on the appropriate GPU is too low, which usually means that the script is hung and no longer asking for work, but still running.  If either condition is true, it attempts to kill the script if still running, and then starts it in a way that it pops up on the display and has access to X.

For remote monitoring, I'm using some custom mods to cdhowie's flexible mining proxy.  My proxy box has a cron script that pulls the database every few minutes, and if any miner hasn't requested work in a certain amount of time, a command is sent to a networked power strip to cut power for a few seconds, rebooting the box regardless of how badly crashed it is.

These scripts are still pretty crude, but they work great for me.  Hopefully you and others will find them useful as well.

I'm planning two improvements, but I probably won't get around to them until late in the week.  First, I want to create config files to simplify setup, particularly for people that don't already know how to customize these bash scripts.  And once that is done, I want to set it up to download the config files from a webserver so that I can just clone the USB stick to plug into a new box and have automatic provisioning.

[Jonathan Ryan Owens]

This is really great stuff kjj, thanks so much for saving me the time.  On wednesday night I should be able to implement this.  Can you explain to me the last code? the crontab -e

the restart script just kills the terminal and restarts it if the cpu load falls a certain amount?

have you found a way to monitor them remotely?

crontab -e is the command to edit the user crontab.  You need to run that command, which starts an editor, so you can add that line.  Must be done while logged in as user not as root, as in use LXTerminal from the Accessories menu, not Root Terminal.

The restart script checks for two possible error conditions.  First, if the script named miner1.sh (or miner2.sh, or minerX.sh) is no longer running.  Second, if the load on the appropriate GPU is too low, which usually means that the script is hung and no longer asking for work, but still running.  If either condition is true, it attempts to kill the script if still running, and then starts it in a way that it pops up on the display and has access to X.

For remote monitoring, I'm using some custom mods to cdhowie's flexible mining proxy.  My proxy box has a cron script that pulls the database every few minutes, and if any miner hasn't requested work in a certain amount of time, a command is sent to a networked power strip to cut power for a few seconds, rebooting the box regardless of how badly crashed it is.

These scripts are still pretty crude, but they work great for me.  Hopefully you and others will find them useful as well.

I'm planning two improvements, but I probably won't get around to them until late in the week.  First, I want to create config files to simplify setup, particularly for people that don't already know how to customize these bash scripts.  And once that is done, I want to set it up to download the config files from a webserver so that I can just clone the USB stick to plug into a new box and have automatic provisioning.

Impressive work, kjj. An initial setup screen is a great idea. Perhaps an even better idea is to over-simplify and create a distro specific to an optimized hardware build i.e. motherboard, processor and graphics best practice. Have a very simple cpanel for the box, with functionality that would include assigning pool to GPU, pool credentials, external wallet address(es).

Bounty?

[hugolp]

Ok. So I finally got things working with LinuxCoin with persistance in my test computer. But when I rebooted my mining rig into LinuxCoin it started to load it and then hang with a black screen.

Is there a problem with installing LinuxCoin in one computer with a determined hardware and then move it to a computer with different hardware?

[TheMoneyStorm]

Is there a problem with installing LinuxCoin in one computer with a determined hardware and then move it to a computer with different hardware?

Yea..It probably saved the settings from your test system. Try booting without persistence and formatting the persistence partition and then rebooting with persistence on your mining rig.

[CydeWeys]

All right guys, I got Linuxcoin up and running last night after several hours of messing around with it.  I ran into three main problems.  Hopefully my solutions will be helpful to others (and if they are, a token amount to 19hVUo1jEYmo9LW82VcqitwbqLG8o9hReB would be appreciated).

1.  I had to format my USB stick on a Windows computer.  I tried just about everything under the Sun to get it working from my GNU/Linux computer, but all I ever got was "Boot error" when attempting to load the OS on my mining rig.  Incidentally the USB stick booted fine on other computers.  Then I finally came across the following post that resolved my issue: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/237445-30-boot-external

Apparently the BIOS on Gigabyte motherboards kind of sucks, and it doesn't handle boot partitions that aren't in some extremely Windows-specific format, so if you have a Gigabyte motherboard and you're getting "Boot Error", here's what to do.  Stick the USB stick in a GNU/Linux computer and use fdisk to delete all the partitions (yes, you can't use Disk Manager in Windows 7 to do this, although other better partitioning programs probably can).

Then stick it in a Windows computer and use Disk Manager to create a new FAT partition 1 GiB in size.  Then remove the flash stick from the Windows computer, stick it back in your Linux computer, and create a new partition in the remaining space for your persistence volume and format that as ext4.

After all that rigamarole, I loaded the Linuxcoin to the FAT partition using unetbootin on my Linux computer and it finally was able to boot on the Gigabyte motherboard.

2.  Secondly, I got an error after Linuxcoin booted up but before it got to the desktop.  I'm sorry I forget the error now, but it was something about how it couldn't find the live something or other.  The solution was to plug the USB stick into a different port on the motherboard, and then it worked.

3.  Phoenix wouldn't mine even though all of the CLinfo and aticonfig diagnostics indicated that OpenCL was functioning properly.  I was getting the dreaded "FATAL kernel error: Failed to load OpenCL kernel!" error.  The solution ended up being deleting the version of Phoenix that came on the Linuxcoin stick and grabbing the latest trunk from Phoenix's Subversion.  The Phoenix that ships on Linuxcoin is just borked for some reason; go get it on the web like you would if your distro didn't already come with it, and that should fix it.

[GimEEE]

All right guys, I got Linuxcoin up and running last night after several hours of messing around with it.  I ran into three main problems.  Hopefully my solutions will be helpful to others (and if they are, a token amount to 19hVUo1jEYmo9LW82VcqitwbqLG8o9hReB would be appreciated).

1.  I had to format my USB stick on a Windows computer.  I tried just about everything under the Sun to get it working from my GNU/Linux computer, but all I ever got was "Boot error" when attempting to load the OS on my mining rig.  Incidentally the USB stick booted fine on other computers.  Then I finally came across the following post that resolved my issue: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/237445-30-boot-external

Apparently the BIOS on Gigabyte motherboards kind of sucks, and it doesn't handle boot partitions that aren't in some extremely Windows-specific format, so if you have a Gigabyte motherboard and you're getting "Boot Error", here's what to do.  Stick the USB stick in a GNU/Linux computer and use fdisk to delete all the partitions (yes, you can't use Disk Manager in Windows 7 to do this, although other better partitioning programs probably can).

Then stick it in a Windows computer and use Disk Manager to create a new FAT partition 1 GiB in size.  Then remove the flash stick from the Windows computer, stick it back in your Linux computer, and create a new partition in the remaining space for your persistence volume and format that as ext4.

After all that rigamarole, I loaded the Linuxcoin to the FAT partition using unetbootin on my Linux computer and it finally was able to boot on the Gigabyte motherboard.

2.  Secondly, I got an error after Linuxcoin booted up but before it got to the desktop.  I'm sorry I forget the error now, but it was something about how it couldn't find the live something or other.  The solution was to plug the USB stick into a different port on the motherboard, and then it worked.

3.  Phoenix wouldn't mine even though all of the CLinfo and aticonfig diagnostics indicated that OpenCL was functioning properly.  I was getting the dreaded "FATAL kernel error: Failed to load OpenCL kernel!" error.  The solution ended up being deleting the version of Phoenix that came on the Linuxcoin stick and grabbing the latest trunk from Phoenix's Subversion.  The Phoenix that ships on Linuxcoin is just borked for some reason; go get it on the web like you would if your distro didn't already come with it, and that should fix it.

Have you tried a standard HDD install of Ubuntu following the guides for opencl/python/phoenix (or diablo) install? That could save people 5-6hrs from linuxcoin/usb drives in general.
Although I love the concept, I think debian/lxfce just doesn't have the support for it right now. . .
Using XFCE desktop on Xubuntu I get pretty good hash speeds and minimal cpu use.

[CydeWeys]

Yes, I have two other computers that are running Ubuntu booting off a hard drive in a more normal configuration.  Neither of them were trouble-free installation experiences either.  Linuxcoin was actually about on par in terms of time spent getting it set up, and I didn't have to buy another hard drive and optical drive.  Plus, if I had just figured out that damn Gigabyte USB boot incompatibility earlier (or gotten a different mobo), it would've taken much less time.

[drgr33n]

A little update. As I'm going to be busy for a while sorting my real life out I've decided to patch up linuxcoin 0.2a for now and release it as 0.2b. There are so many posts in this tread its hard to keep up with everything so if you would like something included please inbox me as soon as possible.

So far on the list.

Software update (complete)
add screen & ntp (complete)
fix pcmanfm (complete)
update license agreement script (moved to system settings)
spelling errors etc. (complete)
More elegant way to initialize the ATI GPGPU's (complete)

Added apache2, tftp, dnsmasq for booting the filesystem via network. I'll write a guide when uploading so you can use linuxcoin as a pxe server and distribute linuxcoin over a network.

[sal002]

3.  Phoenix wouldn't mine even though all of the CLinfo and aticonfig diagnostics indicated that OpenCL was functioning properly.  I was getting the dreaded "FATAL kernel error: Failed to load OpenCL kernel!" error.  The solution ended up being deleting the version of Phoenix that came on the Linuxcoin stick and grabbing the latest trunk from Phoenix's Subversion.  The Phoenix that ships on Linuxcoin is just borked for some reason; go get it on the web like you would if your distro didn't already come with it, and that should fix it.

Did you run aticonfig --adapter=all --initial and logout / log back in? I had to do this and then all was well (even with the loaded Phoenix)

[CydeWeys]

A little update. As I'm going to be busy for a while sorting my real life out I've decided to patch up linuxcoin 0.2a for now and release it as 0.2b. There are so many posts in this tread its hard to keep up with everything so if you would like something included please inbox me as soon as possible.

So far on the list.

Software update (complete)
add screen & ntp (complete)
fix pcmanfm (complete)
update license agreement script (in progress)
spelling errors etc. (complete)
More elegant way to initialize the ATI GPGPU's (in progress)

Added apache2, tftp, dnsmasq for booting the filesystem via network. I'll write a guide when uploading so you can use linuxcoin as a pxe server and distribute linuxcoin over a network.

Change the default background lxterminal color from transparent to black, as transparent is just unusable.

Have it use a blank screensaver by default instead of a random screensaver (this can suck away a lot of MHash/s if it randomly chooses a graphically intensive screensaver).

Great work on everything by the way!