windows or linux?

[Willowbitcoin]

I've done a quick search and nothing showed on the first 2 pages.

I'm just curious why there seems to be a preference for linux based rigs over windows?

Is this an ideological preference or performance based preference ?

[pekv2]

A lot of users will not bow down to big corps. There are many reasons.

[gweedo]

Linux is slim, and not a memory or cpu hog. So it makes it great for embedded systems that just have to do coordination of the getwork to the GPUs

[notme]

Linux for performance.
Linux for ideology.
Linux for $$$ BTCBTCBTC.

[mufa23]

>Free.
>Runs for months without errors.
>Light on hardware.
>Usually a slight boost in hash/s.

[racerguy]

windows and linux provide the same mining performance the only advantage to linux is it needs less background resources to run, so if you're running a dedicated rig linux turns out cheaper for hardware (little ram and no hard disk needed).

[Willowbitcoin]

Thanks for the responses.
I'm a bit behind having only gotten my head around BTC in the last couple of weeks but i am planning on buying a 7970 and throw it in an old box we have here and stick it in the corner.

Does this sound like a OK start? I see there is allot of back and forth about asics

[pekv2]

Right now its more profitable to mine LTC then trade it for BTC than mine BTC atm. I've been hearing the 7000 series cards cannot be memory underclocked. I don't know where that stands atm.

If the asics hit, I believe and many others believe, gpu miners will switch over to mining ltc, trade ltc for btc.

For me atm, I would make around 2.93 btc a week mining btc, but with me mining ltc and trading for btc, I make around 6 btc or so a week. But you gotta factor in the LTC difficulty increase.

[racerguy]

Thanks for the responses.
I'm a bit behind having only gotten my head around BTC in the last couple of weeks but i am planning on buying a 7970 and throw it in an old box we have here and stick it in the corner.

Does this sound like a OK start? I see there is allot of back and forth about asics

If you want to get into gpu mining now it's probably more profitable to buy and old 5xxx card 2nd hand, I don't think there's enough time left for a 7xxx series card to pay for itself before asics take over.

[50BTC.com]

In my experience Linux is more stable at mining. On windows I had every day troubles on some of my rigs.

Thanks for the responses.
I'm a bit behind having only gotten my head around BTC in the last couple of weeks but i am planning on buying a 7970 and throw it in an old box we have here and stick it in the corner.

Does this sound like a OK start? I see there is allot of back and forth about asics

If you want to get into gpu mining now it's probably more profitable to buy and old 5xxx card 2nd hand, I don't think there's enough time left for a 7xxx series card to pay for itself before asics take over.

It will not be easy to sell 5xxx series after asics will come.

[01BTC10]

It's faster to setup BAMT Linux than Windows. It needs less resource and it's open source like BTC!

[DrG]

It's faster to setup BAMT Linux than Windows. It needs less resource and it's open source like BTC!

If you can BIOS flash 5 6870s or 6950s and setup BAMT in 38 minutes then yes Linux is faster.  Win 7 x 64 install with SP1, ATI driver, MSI afterburner, Trixx took 38 minutes to get my 6870s to run 965/175.  I doubt you can do that with BAMT.  Linux uses less resources, but on a dedicated miner does it matter?

If electricity cost is not an issue then go with BAMT, but I get much lower mem clocks more easily with Win 7 setups and that saves me over 110 Watts per rig (5 6870s).

[01BTC10]

It's faster to setup BAMT Linux than Windows. It needs less resource and it's open source like BTC!

If you can BIOS flash 5 6870s or 6950s and setup BAMT in 38 minutes then yes Linux is faster.  Win 7 x 64 install with SP1, ATI driver, MSI afterburner, Trixx took 38 minutes to get my 6870s to run 965/175.  I doubt you can do that with BAMT.  Linux uses less resources, but on a dedicated miner does it matter?

If electricity cost is not an issue then go with BAMT, but I get much lower mem clocks more easily with Win 7 setups and that saves me over 110 Watts per rig (5 6870s).

I've played only with 5xxx series cards. Is it easy to run Win7 X64 on a USB stick with 1GB of ram?

But I get your point about 6xxx series 

[DrG]

It's faster to setup BAMT Linux than Windows. It needs less resource and it's open source like BTC!

If you can BIOS flash 5 6870s or 6950s and setup BAMT in 38 minutes then yes Linux is faster.  Win 7 x 64 install with SP1, ATI driver, MSI afterburner, Trixx took 38 minutes to get my 6870s to run 965/175.  I doubt you can do that with BAMT.  Linux uses less resources, but on a dedicated miner does it matter?

If electricity cost is not an issue then go with BAMT, but I get much lower mem clocks more easily with Win 7 setups and that saves me over 110 Watts per rig (5 6870s).

I've played only with 5xxx series cards. Is it easy to run Win7 X64 on a USB stick with 1GB of ram?

But I get your point about 6xxx series 

Yeah the requirement for a HD is probably the biggest downside to a Win rig.  Sucks I sold about 5 new 200GB laptop HDs just before the thailand floods - then I figured out I needed them and now you're can't get any new drive under $60 - well HD that is.  That's why I'm just buying small SSDs for the mining rigs - makes setup so fast.  But time is money.

1GB of RAM?  Shit I have over 100 GB of DDR2 and probably close to 300GB of DDR3 that I got for free or near free when the prices were cheap and rebates plentiful.  It's the cheap decent mobos I can't find - have to shell out $150 for 890FXA-GD70s since I know they're more or less problem free out of the box.

What it boils down to is use what your comfortable with.  Unless you're going to have 20+ cards just go with what you know.  If you only know Windows don't mess around with trying to learn Linux since the miner won't be working while you learn.  If you know Linux then setup BAMT and be happy.

[Lethos]

If your just starting out, Most will do fine using a windows OS.

However once you start having dedicated rigs, many find it more stable and cost effective to use a linux OS, which "flavour" of course is a personal preference. After all once you start having multiple rigs, it's nice to know you can set and forget a linux box, the same is not so easy to be said about a windows machine. Any downtime loses you potentially earned bitcoins.

[foggyb]

If your just starting out, Most will do fine using a windows OS.

However once you start having dedicated rigs, many find it more stable and cost effective to use a linux OS, which "flavour" of course is a personal preference. After all once you start having multiple rigs, it's nice to know you can set and forget a linux box, the same is not so easy to be said about a windows machine. Any downtime loses you potentially earned bitcoins.

Agreed. Windows is fine for small miners. Not 100% stable, but it is manageable on a small scale.

Strange no one has mentioned the other advantage of linux: 8 GPU cores usable versus only 4 on Windows.

[notme]

8 GPU cores usable versus only 4 on Windows.

Really.... wow.

As usual, I'm still glad I ditched windows 10 years ago.