Apt get install bitcoin mineral
I have always found Bitcoin to be intriguing Yeah, I know it is probably not cost effective Yeah, I know the currency crashes every couple of months Yeah, I know it will probably be illegalized soon But somehow, using compute cycles to generate currency out of thin air just pushes my geek buttons! And when I realized I could use a Raspberry Pi to run my miner, the deal was sealed. I took the plunge a few weeks ago and purchased an ASIC miner. For those unfamiliar with the history of mining Bitcoin, the difficulty of solving each block increases every other week or apt get install bitcoin mineral.
Early on you could mine with just your computer's CPU. But fairly quickly the difficulty increased to the point where a single CPU was no longer effective, so miners switched to using the highly parallel GPU cores found in modern graphics cards. Now, the difficulty has increased to the point that even GPU mining is obsolete and miners have turned to using custom ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuit chips that implement the necessary hashing algorithms in hardware giving it the extreme speeds need to achieve profitable hashing rates.
Rated for a very respectable 1. At least at a hobby level. Mining Bitcoin is not apt get install bitcoin mineral to ever be profitable without some significant investment in hardware or a significant rise in the value of Bitcoin. I undertake this effort as a hobby, not as a alternate source of income. If you want to project the profitability of mining Bitcoin with a specific hardware setup, you should consulte this site. It most cases, you will be very forunate if you reach a break even point before the difficulty catches up with you.
That, however, does nothing to detract from the coolness of being a Bitcoin miner. According to the specifications, my miner draws a full milliamps from the USB port. Since I wanted to use my Raspberry Pi as the controller, this presents a problem since the Raspbery Pi only can deliver about milliamps combined across both USB ports. This necessitated a search for a powered USB hub which could not only deliver milliamps to each port, but that was apt get install bitcoin mineral compatible with the Raspberry Pi!
After a long search, I settled on this one from Amazon. To confirm it worked, I first logged into my Pi and ran this command:. These are to be expected. There is a onboard hub Device which controls two ports Device and Device I then powered up the hub, plugged in my miner, and plugged the whole assembly into my Pi. Running lsusb again, I see the additional entries:. Mining on anything less than an industrial scale requires participation in a mining pool. A pool harnesses the hashing power of all its members to collectively solve a apt get install bitcoin mineral.
Once solved, the block reward is distributed to all the members proportionate to their respective contributions. To start mining with your ASIC miner and Raspberry Pi you need to join a pool and create a "worker" which is an account to which your mining will submit solutions. I recommend Slush's Pool. Most mining setups utilize an open source program called cgminer.
Used as a controller for a wide array of different hardware, cgminer handles communication of work units and solutions to and from a pool's servers. The Apt get install bitcoin mineral U1 uses a custom version of cgminer with drivers for it preinstalled. If you are using a different miner, your mileage may vary. To get started I created a separate directory in my home directory to hold all things bitcoin:.
The software unfortunately requires a lengthy build and configuration process that has additional software dependencies. Some of these I found online, and some I found by trial and error.
Below is a list of all the ones I needed, running the latest Raspberry Pi firmware, to save you the trouble. Once again, your mileage may vary. Once all these are successfully downloaded and installed, you can start the cgminer build process.
This takes a long time. Do not be worried if it seems to hang. According to online wisdom, this improves the stability of the miner. I cannot vouch for that one way apt get install bitcoin mineral another, but just included it here for completeness.
You now have an executable capable of running cgminer and controlling your Antminer U1! The command to run the miner is as follows:. The -o parameter is the URL of your mining pool. Finally the --bmsc-freq option is a custom parameter to the Antminer U1 that sets the clock speed.
According to the documentation and online wisdom, 2 Ghps is the most you should apt get install bitcoin mineral the Antminer U1 without significant external cooling. The clock settings go higher all the way up to 4 GHps according to some reports but require significant external cooling and run the risk of causing faults on the chip or even permenant damage.
I personally run my at which is a solid compromise between performance and stability. If you are intent on overclocking you should investigate getting a heatsink with the proper thermal tape or thermal adhesive! If you are going to push the envelope, you should look at creating a wind tunnel to focus your fan on the chip, or try something more exotic like a mineral oil bath.
Sound off in the comments with any cooling rigs you experiment with! Running the command as describe above will run it interactively in the terminal. Since you apt get install bitcoin mineral not likely to want to stay logged into your Pi while you mine, I would suggest the following changes to the command:.
The nohup causes the program to persist in executing even if the originating user logs out. I have been mining intermittently for about three weeks at 1. But that is beside the point Do not attach a Raspberry Pi camera to your Raspberry Pi while mining. If possible, I recommend buying a microSD card for your Raspberry Pi and using an adapter such as this one. Over time the pins on the Pi's card reader become worn down causing it to occasionally crash the OS due to a bad read.
This wrecks havoc with your efforts to keep a good mining streak going. The microSD adapter I listed above apt get install bitcoin mineral not have recessed pins like all SD cards have and therefore hold a good connection for a long time.
Ensure your power cord is firmly attached and not worn out. I had a number of unexplained network crashes due to a loose power cord.
While not enough power loss to cause the Pi to shut off, it would periodically kill my network apt get install bitcoin mineral, and disrupt my miner. That is it for now! To confirm it worked, I first logged into my Pi and ran this command: Bus Device Running lsusb again, I apt get install bitcoin mineral the additional entries: To get started I created a separate apt get install bitcoin mineral in my home directory to hold all things bitcoin: The command to run the miner is as follows: I did not ask any questions.
Apt get install bitcoin mineral you are not likely to want to stay logged into your Pi while you mine, I would suggest the following changes to the command: A few final tips I have learned: