Saturday, May 11, 2013

update: ubuntu 11.04/12.04/12.10/13.04 x86_64 dedicated crypto currency (bitcoin, i0coins, solidcoins, namecoins, ixcoins) mining rig using ATI RADEON GPU and CGMINER

I decided to create a cleaner look post. Also, this tutorial is for the latest *buntu releases and will target only cgminer as mining software.

If this tutorial helps you to start mining, please consider giving a small % of your gains to my wallet : 13sRUwHbmv5ewLjQkKabDTsyPQEDD4v6mx . You know, this blog has over 90 000 page views, and no one ever said thank you for my time.  At least, press on one adsense publicity to help me maintaining this blog.  Thank you



  1. To mine you will need :
    1. A computer with a very good power supply (850W to 1200W) 80+ gold is a plus..
    2. You don't need a case, the graphics cards will become very hot, they need a very good air flow around them to cool down, be creative :-)..
    3. If you think to use more than 2 cards in your computer, be sure to use external power on the riser cards, else your motherboard connector could melt (I know, it happend to me on a 3 GPU cards computer)
    4. Linux *buntu CD version 13.04 ( I like kubuntu more than the other )
    5. AMD Catalyst driver ( from AMD ) : version 13.04
    6. AMD APP, open cl driver ( from AMD ) : version 2.8 
    7. If you want CGMINER to control the GPU/MEM/FAN speed and other hardware parameter, you will need ADL_SDK : version 5.0  


  2. Here is some advice on the choice of your computer :
    1. Don't put more memory than needed, 1GB is more than needed
    2. Try to use a USB KEY or 2.5" hard disk drive to use less energy
    3. Use the smallest CPU possible, try to get old 60W CPU or less, mining does not require a lot of CPU power to run well
    4. Remove the CD/DVD player, this computer is not a desktop, it is only used to mine
    5. The computer will produce heat, a lot of heat will be produced and will be probably noisy, very noisy. 


  3. Little note, in this tutorial, when you see " $ " it means you have to write something in the terminal prompt. If you have comment or suggestions, please be free to leave a comment, it is always a pleasure to update this tutorial.
  4. Here we start! You will need to add the following packages
    1. open a terminal and type :
    2. $ sudo apt-get install vim subversion git-core libcurl4-openssl-dev libncurses5-dev pkg-config automake yasm openssh-server openssh-client build-essential


  5. Install AMD Catalyst
    1. Here, be carefull, there is 2 way to do it, from my experience, up to version 12.04 (no update applied) you can install the driver, but for earlier version, you have to create and then install the package 
    2. open a terminal and type:
    3. $ cd ~/Downloads
    4. $ mkdir amd-driver-13.04
    5. $ cd amd-driver-13.04
    6. $ unzip ../amd-driver-installer-13.04-x86_64.zip
    7. $ chmod +x amd-driver-installer-13.04-x86_64.run
    8. $ sudo ./amd-driver-installer-13.04-x86_64.run
      1. Select install driver (< 12.04) or create a package (>=12.04)
      2. say yes to the licence and choose automatic
    9. If you used the package, you will have to install the driver, with the file explorer double click on the created package and install. Hopefully it will work (it worked nicely for me)
    10. If you have more than one card :
      1. $ echo 'export display=:0' >> ~/.bashrc
    11. Initialize the driver
      1. $ sudo aticonfig --initial --adapter=all
    12. reboot the computer
      1. $ aticonfig --odgc --adapter=all
        1. you should see the clocking of your GPU
        2.  


  6. Install AMD_APP (OpenCL Driver)
    1. $ cd ~/Downloads
    2. $ mkdir AMD_APP_2.8
    3. $ cd AMD_APP_2.8
    4. $ tar -zxvf ../AMD-APP-SDK-v2.8-lnx64.tgz
    5. $ sudo ./Install-AMD-APP.sh
    6. reboot


  7. cgminer installation !
    1. $ mkdir ~/bitcoin/
    2. $ cd ~/bitcoin
    3. $ git git://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer.git cgminer
    4. $ cd cgminer
    5. $ cd ~/Downloads
    6. $ mkdir ADL_SDK_5
    7. $ cd ADL_SDK_5
    8. $ unzip ../ADL_SDK_5.0.zip
    9. $ cp include/* ~/bitcoin/cgminer/ADL_SDK
    10. $ cd ~/bitcoin/cgminer
    11. $ ./autogen.sh
    12. $ CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native -I /opt/AMDAPP/include/" LDFLAGS="-L/opt/AMDAPP/lib/x86_64" ./configure
    13. $  make
    14. The following command should tell you the number of gpu core present on your computer
      1. $ ./cgminer -n


  8. Now you need to find a good mining pool. I like deepbit and bitcoinpool, but there is a lot of other pool, you will have to select one that fit your needs.
Good luck mining :-)

2 comments:

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    1. Thanks for this tutorial! It works just fine :)

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