BFL "EasyMiner" Released. Reviews?

[jddebug]

Oh, BFL, could you add teh average temp for the testing period to the results that display at the end of the test? Thats an important reading.

Thanks

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[RoloTonyBrownTown]

Hmm, Easyminer doesn't see my boxes at all, weirdly (they're currently happily mining away)...

EDIT:  Ok, I had to quit out of Cgminer before they were picked up.  Fair enough.

[jddebug]

In case no one noticed they have released Beta 1.1

I don't notice anything new yet but fyi.

[jddebug]

Hmm, Easyminer doesn't see my boxes at all, weirdly (they're currently happily mining away)...

I found I had to stop cgminer from mining or it didn't see mine either.

[fuuka]

Looking forward to more firmware releases.

Maybe even some community ones   

[preparation]

I can't find my units using easyminer :/ tried several cables and ports while connecting to a desktop (win7) or a laptop (xp)

[SgtSpike]

I installed EasyMiner.  It shows my units just fine, but only allows me to select the 3rd option on the menu (the diagnostics/testing/statistics option, forgot what it was called).  The other two options are grayed out.  So, I can see the units, but I can't mine with them using EasyMiner.  Any suggestions?

Any obscurity on your part does not add any security, BFL Engineer, you are only wasting time you could use on shipping machines and deluding yourself. I am dead serious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_cow_problem

Passwords are security through obscurity.  Just sayin.

[BFL-Engineer]

I installed EasyMiner.  It shows my units just fine, but only allows me to select the 3rd option on the menu (the diagnostics/testing/statistics option, forgot what it was called).  The other two options are grayed out.  So, I can see the units, but I can't mine with them using EasyMiner.  Any suggestions?

Any obscurity on your part does not add any security, BFL Engineer, you are only wasting time you could use on shipping machines and deluding yourself. I am dead serious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_cow_problem

Passwords are security through obscurity.  Just sayin.

Mining feature is still under development, as we have something a lot more important to finish
before we proceed with the rest of the EasyMiner coding.


Regards,
BF Labs Inc.

[BFL-Engineer]

I can't find my units using easyminer :/ tried several cables and ports while connecting to a desktop (win7) or a laptop (xp)

Please note that any other application that may use the units (or simply holds their COMPORT open)
must be closed. No two applications can access the same Com Port at the same time.


Regards,
BF Labs Inc.

[BFL-Engineer]

Out of curiosity what is the absolute highest hashrate you've gotten out of these units?

Now if someone was to build a waterblock for the babies we could push them to the edge

960 MH/s has been confirmed, although the unit throttles every 40 seconds. Running at
that speed needs special cooling (it may work in the freezer however, without throttling).


Regards,
BF Labs Inc.

[dirtycat]

Out of curiosity what is the absolute highest hashrate you've gotten out of these units?

Now if someone was to build a waterblock for the babies we could push them to the edge

960 MH/s has been confirmed, although the unit throttles every 40 seconds. Running at
that speed needs special cooling (it may work in the freezer however, without throttling).


Regards,
BF Labs Inc.

BFL recommends putting your singles in the freezer!!!

[rjk]

Out of curiosity what is the absolute highest hashrate you've gotten out of these units?

Now if someone was to build a waterblock for the babies we could push them to the edge

960 MH/s has been confirmed, although the unit throttles every 40 seconds. Running at
that speed needs special cooling (it may work in the freezer however, without throttling).


Regards,
BF Labs Inc.

BFL recommends putting your singles in the freezer!!!

lol, that's only with an unreleased test firmware. Although it would be fun to try.

[dirtycat]

Out of curiosity what is the absolute highest hashrate you've gotten out of these units?

Now if someone was to build a waterblock for the babies we could push them to the edge

960 MH/s has been confirmed, although the unit throttles every 40 seconds. Running at
that speed needs special cooling (it may work in the freezer however, without throttling).


Regards,
BF Labs Inc.

BFL recommends putting your singles in the freezer!!!

lol, that's only with an unreleased test firmware. Although it would be fun to try.

I can imagine a whole freezer with bunch of neatly stacked singles.. idea people!!!

[SgtSpike]

Leaving customers with only one commercial operating system choice and one mining pool increases downtime risk. With the non-trivial cost of investing in FPGA tech in the first place, downtime is a miner's worst enemy. Seems odd to me - are these 'sekrits' so extreme that they have to be protected at all costs? Nobody else is using the chips you are - everyone else is using the Spartan-6 LX150 with differing USB interface solutions - so what still needs to be hidden? All secrecy does at this stage is engender mistrust...

I suppose I am confused where they are leaving you with only one OS choice and one mining pool?

Use CG Miner, use whatever OS you want, and mine at whatever pool you want.

[rjk]

Just a quick note catfish, so that you are aware - these devices have their own microcontroller and flash, and come preloaded with "a" bitstream, but as you well know cannot be updated to a faster version outside of Windows. But they don't need to be reprogrammed each powercycle, since the firmware/bitstream is stored locally.

However, making it updateable within a *nix OS is definitely preferable, even if the bitstream remains encrypted all the way to the device. That would make it much better.

[SgtSpike]

Leaving customers with only one commercial operating system choice and one mining pool increases downtime risk. With the non-trivial cost of investing in FPGA tech in the first place, downtime is a miner's worst enemy. Seems odd to me - are these 'sekrits' so extreme that they have to be protected at all costs? Nobody else is using the chips you are - everyone else is using the Spartan-6 LX150 with differing USB interface solutions - so what still needs to be hidden? All secrecy does at this stage is engender mistrust...

I suppose I am confused where they are leaving you with only one OS choice and one mining pool?

Use CG Miner, use whatever OS you want, and mine at whatever pool you want.

The BFL rep said that the firmware upload procedure was classified and encrypted, and runs only on Windows XP. My FPGAs don't run without the bitstream loaded onto them, so if BFL need a Windows box to load their bitstream, then I don't see any incoherence in my comment.

As to the one-pool - that's only because it was mentioned that only Inaba's pool was supported by the software.

I'm only talking about this specific software (as per the title of the thread) - if BFL supply a toolchain for other OSes that allows programming of the bitstream, which can then be controlled by a FOSS miner of choice, then that's a good thing. But my comment referred *only* to the topic - their EasyMiner software.

Got it.  I kind of gathered that you thought you couldn't mine with them on linux.  Guess I got the wrong impression there.

EDIT:  You seem to be implying that this is a dealbreaker.  Before BFL released the faster firmware, were you considering purchasing them?  Or was it only potentially worth purchasing after the faster firmware was released?  Or are you just rejecting them on principle?

[enmaku]

Realistically the problem isn't that BFL is limiting our options with proprietary software - we sill have plenty of FOSS alternatives to easyminer. The problem is BFL's general attitude of secrecy and proprietary nonsense when selling to a community that loves their open-source. First they claim to be using a totally proprietary design that no one will ever ever reverse engineer. ZhouTong desolders a chip and hooks it up to JTAG headers, finds out it's an Altera Stratix III EP3SL150 FPGA. Now they're telling us the firmware flash mechanism is proprietary - how long do they think it'll be before someone breaks that too? They're handing us closed-source software but as was mentioned it's not hard to sniff COM port activity and reverse engineer that too. Classic "smart cow" problems all - I'm just wondering how long it'll be until BFL figures out that all their secrecy buys them is time. There's no reason to keep this stuff under wraps - there's no harm in letting people experiment with custom firmwares as long as they're clear on what that does to warranty support, there's no harm in just telling people what chip they're using either, it's just confusing how secretive BFL acts.

Note that I'm not saying their product is bad or that I don't approve of it - I'm on the wait list for a single, actually - I'm just saying that they have a very secretive business model and *that* I don't approve of.

[SgtSpike]

Realistically the problem isn't that BFL is limiting our options with proprietary software - we sill have plenty of FOSS alternatives to easyminer. The problem is BFL's general attitude of secrecy and proprietary nonsense when selling to a community that loves their open-source. First they claim to be using a totally proprietary design that no one will ever ever reverse engineer. ZhouTong desolders a chip and hooks it up to JTAG headers, finds out it's an Altera Stratix III EP3SL150 FPGA. Now they're telling us the firmware flash mechanism is proprietary - how long do they think it'll be before someone breaks that too? They're handing us closed-source software but as was mentioned it's not hard to sniff COM port activity and reverse engineer that too. Classic "smart cow" problems all - I'm just wondering how long it'll be until BFL figures out that all their secrecy buys them is time. There's no reason to keep this stuff under wraps - there's no harm in letting people experiment with custom firmwares as long as they're clear on what that does to warranty support, there's no harm in just telling people what chip they're using either, it's just confusing how secretive BFL acts.

Note that I'm not saying their product is bad or that I don't approve of it - I'm on the wait list for a single, actually - I'm just saying that they have a very secretive business model and *that* I don't approve of.

Yeah, I understand where you're coming from.  For me personally, it doesn't bother me at all, but I know why people who love open-source would be bothered.

My guess as to why they remain as closed as possible about these things is so that they can keep competitors out as long as possible.  If people knew right from the start that they were using an Altera Stratix III EP3SL150 FPGA, and had the open source firmware, it wouldn't take much for someone else to start copying the process and selling it themselves.  As it is, BFL still has a corner on the market for the price/MH/s, and that's largely in part because they kept everything closed-source.

It is usually smart, financially, to do things closed-source to avoid competitors stealing your work.  Not always smart, but usually.  And I think the smarter choice in this case WAS keeping things closed-source.  Maybe they'll open it up in the future, once there is less risk of competitors stealing their work (perhaps after competitors are more focused on ASICs instead), and there is more incentive to offer consumers a modifiable platform.

[Luke-Jr]

Realistically the problem isn't that BFL is limiting our options with proprietary software - we sill have plenty of FOSS alternatives to easyminer.

We have exactly zero free software or non-Windows BFL firmware upgraders. Despite BFL's claim, I was unable to get my Singles recognized by a Windows VM no matter how I passed the device through. When/if someone else* documents the protocol (I hear their EXE is easily decompiled), I plan to write a free firmware upgrade tool. In most countries, this process would be perfectly legal (yay clean-room reverse engineering), so it's just a matter of time.

(since I intend to write such a tool, I cannot myself look at or decompile BFL's code without tainting the "clean" status of my code)

[jothan]

Realistically the problem isn't that BFL is limiting our options with proprietary software - we sill have plenty of FOSS alternatives to easyminer. The problem is BFL's general attitude of secrecy and proprietary nonsense when selling to a community that loves their open-source. First they claim to be using a totally proprietary design that no one will ever ever reverse engineer. ZhouTong desolders a chip and hooks it up to JTAG headers, finds out it's an Altera Stratix III EP3SL150 FPGA. Now they're telling us the firmware flash mechanism is proprietary - how long do they think it'll be before someone breaks that too? They're handing us closed-source software but as was mentioned it's not hard to sniff COM port activity and reverse engineer that too. Classic "smart cow" problems all - I'm just wondering how long it'll be until BFL figures out that all their secrecy buys them is time. There's no reason to keep this stuff under wraps - there's no harm in letting people experiment with custom firmwares as long as they're clear on what that does to warranty support, there's no harm in just telling people what chip they're using either, it's just confusing how secretive BFL acts.

Note that I'm not saying their product is bad or that I don't approve of it - I'm on the wait list for a single, actually - I'm just saying that they have a very secretive business model and *that* I don't approve of.

Exactly. Sanding the chips for example cost them time they could have used to do other things. It took only a few weeks for someone to figure out the FPGA model, nullifying any "benefit" of sanding the chips in the first place.