Build your own Litecoin Mining Rig, part 2: Linux Setup

Linux Litecoin Mining Setup Guide
In the second installment of our DIY litecoin mining guide, we’ll look at how to install and configure Linux to properly mine with your GPUs at optimal settings. Don’t be dissuaded if you’ve never used Linux before—our step-by-step guide makes it easy.

Linux has a few advantages over Windows, including the ability to install to a USB stick (which means you don’t need a harddrive), lesser hardware requirements (you can get by just fine with less than 4GB of RAM), and simpler remote administration capabilities. Best of all, Linux is free! However, be aware that if you’d like to undervolt your GPUs to save power, Windows might be a better choice for you (update 10/2013: no longer true!).

If you missed the hardware portion of our guide, make sure to check it out first. Otherwise, read on.

Build a Litecoin Mining Rig, part 2:  Linux Setup

So you’ve decided to use Linux to run your mining rig—a fine choice! If you’re still a bit nervous because you’ve a complete Linux newbie, don’t be. Simply follow the step-by-step instructions exactly as they’re written, and you’ll be fine. Even if you’ve never done anything like this before, you should be up and running in about an hour.

Step 1: Configure BIOS settings

Before we even get to Linux, make sure your mining computer’s BIOS settings are in order. Power on your computer, and press the “delete” key a few times immediately after power on. You should end up in the BIOS configuration area. Do the following, then save & exit:

  • Change power options so that the computer automatically turns itself on whenever power is restored. The reason for this is two-fold: first, it’ll make sure that your miner automatically starts up after a power outage. Second, it makes powering the computer on much easier if you don’t happen to have a power switch connected to the motherboard.
  • Make sure that your USB stick is first in the boot-up order (you may need to have a USB stick attached).
  • Disable all components that you don’t plan to use. This will save a little bit of power, and since your miner will likely be running 24/7, it’ll add up. For me, that meant disabling onboard audio, the SATA controller, the USB 3.0 ports (I only had a 2.0 USB stick), the Firewire port, and the serial port.

Step 2: Install Xubuntu Desktop to your USB stick

Xubuntu is a lightweight version of Ubuntu, a popular Linux distribution. Most other distros should work just fine, but be aware that the GPU drivers require the presence of Xorg, which means server distros that don’t have a GUI will not work properly.

  • Download the Xubuntu Desktop x64 v12.10 installation image.
  • You’ll need to either burn the installation image onto a CD, or write the image to a second USB stick. If you use a CD, you’ll need to temporarily hook up a CD-ROM drive to your mining rig for the installation (make sure you temporarily enable your SATA controller if you disabled it in step 1!).
  • Once you have the installation media prepared, you’re ready to install Xubuntu to the blank USB stick on your miner. Make sure your blank USB stick is inserted into a USB port on your mining, and then boot into your installation media. The Xubuntu installer should appear.
  • Make sure to click the “auto-login” box towards the end of the installer; otherwise take all of the default installation options.
  • If you’re using a USB stick that is exactly 8GB, the installer may complain about the default partition sizes being too small. Create a new partition table with these settings: 5500mb for root (/), 315mb for swap, and the remaining amount for home (/home). If you’re using a USB stick larger than 8GB, you will not have to do this.
  • When the installation is complete, you should automatically boot into the Xubuntu desktop. Make sure to remove your installation media.

Step 3: Install AMD Catalyst drivers

Open a terminal session by mousing over the bottom center of the screen so that a list of icons appears. Click on “terminal” (it looks like a black box).

  • Type the following commands (press “enter” at the end of each line and wait for Linux to finish doing it’s thing):
    sudo apt-get install fglrx-updates fglrx-amdcccle-updates fglrx-updates-dev
    sudo aticonfig --lsa
    sudo aticonfig --adapter=all --initial
    sudo reboot
  • After your computer reboots, you can verify that everything worked by typing:
    sudo aticonfig --adapter=all --odgt
  • If you see all of your GPUs listed, with “hardware monitoring enabled” next to each, you’re good to go.

Important: you may need to have something plugged into each GPU to prevent the OS from idling it. You can plug 3 monitors into your 3 GPUs, but that isn’t very practical. The easiest option is to create 3 dummy plugs, and leave them attached to your GPUs. They’ll “trick” the OS into believing that a monitor is attached, which will prevent the hardware from being idled. Check out how to create your own dummy plugs.

If you ever add or remove GPUs to your rig later, you’ll need to re-run this command:   sudo aticonfig --adapter=all --initial

Step 4: Install SSH, Curl, and package updates

  • Install SSH by typing:
    sudo apt-get install openssh-server byobu

With SSH installed, you can unplug the keyboard/mouse/monitor (put dummy plugs into all GPUs, though) from your miner, and complete the rest of the installation from your desktop computer. Simply download Putty onto your desktop, run it, and enter the IP address of your mining rig. That should bring up a remote terminal session to your miner, which is more or less just like sitting at the keyboard in front of it.

If you plan to manage your mining rig remotely over the internet, you’ll need to forward port 22 on your router to your miner. Make sure that you use a strong Xubuntu password!

Setup should be quicker from this point, as now you can simply copy text from this webpage (highlight it and press control-C) and then paste it into your Putty session by simply right-clicking anywhere inside the Putty window. Neat, eh?

  • Install Curl and package updates by typing (or copying & pasting into Putty) the following commands:

    sudo apt-get install curl
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get upgrade

Step 5: Install cgminer

Cgminer is the mining software we’ll be using. If the first command doesn’t work, you’ll need to check out the cgminer website and make a note of the current release version. Substitute that in the commands below.

Update: Cgminer 3.7.2 is the last version to support scrypt—do not use any version after that! In addition, depending on which version you choose to use, you may receive an error complaining about libudev.so.1 when you try to run cgminer—you can find the fix for that here.

  • Type the following:

    wget http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/2.11/cgminer-2.11.4-x86_64-built.tar.bz2
    tar jxvf cgminer-2.11.4-x86_64-built.tar.bz2
  • If everything was uncompressed successfully, we can delete the downloaded archive; we don’t need it anymore:
    rm *.bz2
  • Now check if cgminer detects all of your GPUs properly:
    cd cgminer-2.11.4-x86_64-built
    export DISPLAY=:0
    export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1
    ./cgminer -n

Step 6: Create cgminer startup script

We’re almost done—now we just need to create a few simple scripts to control cgminer.

  • If you’re still in the cgminer directory from the previous step, first return to your home directory:
    cd ..
  • Type the following to create a new file with nano, a Linux text editor:
    sudo nano mine_litecoins.sh
  • Type the following into nano (note where the places you need to substitute your own usernames!) :
    #!/bin/sh
    export DISPLAY=:0
    export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
    export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1
    cd /home/YOUR_XUBUNTU_USERNAME/cgminer-2.11.4-x86_64-built
    ./cgminer --scrypt -I 19 --thread-concurrency 21712 -o stratum+tcp://coinotron.com:3334 -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD
  • Save the file and quit nano, then enter the following:
    sudo chmod +x mine_litecoins.sh

Note that the cgminer settings we’re using in our mine_litecoins.sh script correspond to a good starting point for Radeon 7950 series GPUs. If you followed our hardware guide, these settings will give you good hashrates. If you’re using another type of GPU, you’ll want to use Google to find optimal cgminer settings for it.

Also note that you’ll need to create an account at one of the litecoin mining pools, and plug your username and password into the script (the -u and -p parameters). I have Coinotron in there as an example, but there are quite a few to choose from.

Step 7: Create auto-start scripts

We want cgminer to automatically start mining whenever the rig is powered on. That way, we keep mining losses to a minimum whenever a power outage occurs, and we don’t have to worry about manually starting it back up in other situations.

  • Type the following to create a new script and open it in nano:
    sudo nano miner_launcher.sh
  • Enter the following text into the editor (substitute your Xubuntu username where shown!):
    #!/bin/bash
    DEFAULT_DELAY=0
    if [ "x$1" = "x" -o "x$1" = "xnone" ]; then
       DELAY=$DEFAULT_DELAY
    else
       DELAY=$1
    fi
    sleep $DELAY
    su YOUR_XUBUNTU_USERNAME -c "screen -dmS cgm /home/YOUR_XUBUNTU_USERNAME/mine_litecoins.sh"
  • Save and quit nano, and then type:
    sudo chmod +x miner_launcher.sh
  • Now we need to call our new script during startup; we do that by adding it to /etc/rc.local. Type the following to open /etc/rc.local in nano:
    sudo nano /etc/rc.local
  • Add the following text, right above the line that reads “exit 0” (substitute your own username!):
    /home/YOUR_XUBUNTU_USERNAME/miner_launcher.sh 30 &

Step 8: Create an alias to easily check on cgminer

We’re essentially done at this point, but you’ll probably want to manually SSH into your miner from time to time to manually check on your GPU temperatures & hashrates, etc. Creating an alias will make that easy.

  • Type:

    sudo nano .bashrc
  • Scroll to the end of the file, and then add this text above the line that reads “# enable programmable completion…”
    alias cgm='screen -x cgm'
  • Save and quit out of nano.

That’s it—you’re done! You’ll probably want to test everything now. The easiest way to do that is to close your Putty session and power down your miner. Turn it back on and the following should happen:

  1. Your miner should boot into Xubuntu. This may take about a minute, depending on the speed of your USB stick.
  2. 30 seconds after Xubuntu has loaded, cgminer will automatically start and begin mining. You’ll probably notice the fans on your GPUs spin up when this happens.
  3. You should be able to SSH into your miner at any time and type cgm to bring up the cgminer screen. To close the screen (and leave cgminer running), type control-A, then control-D.
  4. If you ever need to start cgminer manually (because you quit out of it, or kill it, etc), simply type ./miner_launcher.sh
cgminer running

If all went well, you should see something like this when checking cgminer via your “cgm” alias.

Congratulations—you have your own headless linux litecoin miner!

The next section of our guide covers setup under Windows, and then we take a look at optimizing cgminer settings for better performance.

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1,431 Responses to “Build your own Litecoin Mining Rig, part 2: Linux Setup”

  1. Glenn says:

    Thanks, CB! I think a problem in the instructions MIGHT exist at the end of step 5. After checking if cgminer detects all GPU’s properly, and displaying the info, I believe “cgminer-2.11.4-x86_64-built” remains in the prompt line. Going straight to Step 6, and typing “nano mine_litecoins.sh” is the action that a person totally unfamiliar with the procedures will do, because you don’t explicitly say, after checking to detect GPU’s at the end of Step 5, “exit from cgminer…, by doing….” Am I correct about this? Seems like there is an assumption on your part at this point that your student KNOWS that they need to get out of cgminer, and knows how to do it. Not sure if I’m right, so correct me please, if not. Thanks again!

  2. mike says:

    This is probably a dumb question, but i had no problem with the hardware side, but now im stuck on step 2 of software. I downloaded the xubuntu image that was linked. i went into bios settings and made sure the usb with xubuntu was the first in the boot up order. i saved and exited. now its telling me “reboot and select proper boot device or insert bood media in selected boot device and press a key. ” is there something i need to do with the .iso file before i insert it into the miner mobo ?

    • CryptoBadger says:

      You’ll need to write the ISO image onto your USB stick using a special tool – it’s basically a compressed archive that needs to be expanded before you can use it.

      You can follow these instructions to create a bootable USB stick. Scroll down to the “windows” section under “creating a bootable ubuntu USB flash drive” and then follow the steps there. You’ll need to point the Live USB Creator tool at the Xubunutu ISO that you already downloaded.

  3. Lou says:

    This is a fantastic guide, however I’m having a problem I can’t believe no-one else has mentioned… right after “STEP 3” where we install the fglrx-updates – as soon as I reboot I get a “black screen” The screen isn’t really black but it looks to be locked up, meaning I can’t get to another terminal window. The only difference is that I have ONE 7950 but everything else is the exact same. Searching the Google really doesn’t bring up anything.
    I know this isn’t really crypto related – but I wanted to mention this for others starting out (like I am) that this happened to me. Unless I have a defective part I can’t imagine no one else experiencing this. If I find anything out I’ll report back – but so far nothing.

  4. Glenn says:

    CB, My second and last suggestion, based on confusion I had: Go ahead and remove the brackets everywhere you used them when you wanted us to put our xubuntu username. A newbie, like me, will likely understand where we read that, that we should enter our username, but I suspect most Newbies, like me, will assume that we should faithfully type the brackets also. I see that you addressed this in some posts, but I encourage you to simply remove them from the instructions. By now you have learned that persons who know NOTHING about building a rig and programming have gotten the courage to do it because of your guide. Thank you CB, Best!

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Thanks for the feedback; I appreciate getting some perspective from people that haven’t dabbled in this kind of thing much before! I went ahead and removed the brackets – hopefully it’s less confusing now. =)

  5. Glenn says:

    Perhaps, “your Xubuntu Username” in italics,if that is an option.

  6. mike says:

    thanks for the quick response earlier. i cannot get cgminer to load at all, manually or auto on startup. i use the cd cgminer-2.11.4-x86_64-built and both of my gpus come up with hardware monitoring enabled.

  7. xub32 says:

    In your mine_launcher.sh script it asks for a password if I try to start it manually (as it wont start on boot). How do you circumvent it asking for a pw?

  8. Glenn says:

    Hi CB, Wanted to report back on progress. Currently, my settings are I 20 W 256 Thread 21712 fan:80% E 1070 M 1450 P 20. I get A:99%, 590 to 605 Kh/s, 73-79 C(varies due to window AC kicking on/off)Fan at 80% running 2971 rpm, and no HW errors at all.
    This is with the Sapphire 7950 boost card, from Oklahoma over a Windstream “high speed” connection that from my area is not so fast. I assume I’m getting the best hash rate I can achieve over this network, and feel very happy with results so far. I’m connected to wemineltc.com pool, which seems to be a good pool, and am making around .8 litecoins/day with this one card, at 602 difficulty. Can anyone tell me where wemineltc’s us server is located?
    Thanks again for solely making this possible by your guide and help!

    In looking around to learn more I found this site http://rdmsnippets.com/2013/03/20/bitcoin-mining-with-ubuntu-12-04-tls-and-cgminer/, maybe you’ll be interested to compare some things in it, if you haven’t seen it. For anyone reading this, I advise strictly following CryptoBadger’s guide for minimum hassle and max result!
    CryptoBadger, to expand your info here, would you be interested in adding a point by point guide through the report line we get from cgminer while connected and mining?
    Sending every 10th coin on the way to 100, in thanks!

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Thanks for the update – glad that things are stable for you! Putting together a write-up on how to analyze cgminer’s output is on my list of things to do – hopefully sometime in the next couple weeks!

  9. burnt says:

    Finally got it working! superb,

    CG miner showing no hardware errors,
    xumbutu is 100% stable
    4 days of pure mining and 0 glitches!

    Thank you crypto badger!

    burnt

  10. Glenn says:

    Have a problem after storm caused power interruption, when trying to SSH into miner using putty, no connection occurs and get a message box saying connection refused. Any guidance on how to fix this? Thanks!

    • charles says:

      Sounds like the storm fried your network interface card on one of your machines. I’ve had that happen to me once on two different computers after a particularly close lightning strike. I’d suggest getting an UPS with an ethernet protection port. Something from APC or similar.

      Also, you’ll need a new replacement NIC, IF that’s the case.

      • CryptoBadger says:

        It does sounds like that’s what happened, unfortunately. You’ll need to plug a monitor into your rig to be sure.

        If you don’t want to invest in a UPS, you can get a basic surge protector with RJ45 (ethernet) ports, like this one.

  11. Glenn says:

    Thanks! I had a surge protector on the power supply, but not the ethernet connection. I’ll follow your suggestion, CB. Am I able to replace a network interface card?

  12. Glenn says:

    I had a surge protector on the power supply. I should mention that the miner is still connected to pool and working. Does that indicate the NIC card is probably still OK?

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Oh yes, if the rig is still mining, then your NIC is definitely ok. I’m not sure what would cause SSH to stop responding if it was working before and nothing has changed. Reboot the box and see if that resolves it – it’s possible that the SSH service crashed, although it’s generally pretty reliable.

      • FrodoBaggins says:

        Are you using DHCP? If the router was reset due to a power outage, I guess there is a chance your rig came up with a different ip.

        Happened to me… After the first panic attack I realized I just had to use the new ip…

        You might be able to find the new IP without plugging a monitor to the rig in your router.

        Hope this helps!

        Cheers!

  13. mahav says:

    Hi CryptoBadger, would like to thank you a ton for the guide, keep an eye on that donation address once I get up and running 🙂 I’m having an issue though, and it has to do with my ASRock mobo refusing to boot from any USB. I’d appreciate it greatly if you take a quick look at the video I made illustrating the problem. Besides a couple of parts I’ve been trying to follow your guide to a tee. Thanks in advance!

    link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezd0gfsyCO8

    • CryptoBadger says:

      I just watched your video. Another person had an issue similar to yours that he believed was caused by using UNetbootin, which it looks like you’re using. Give one of these other methods a try and see if that helps. All of your hardware looks fine, the Dr. Debug LEDs are supposed to go off shortly after boot unless there is an issue.

      • mahav says:

        Thank you for the reply CryptoBadger. I just gave Win32 Disk Imager a try, and the same thing occured – Power/Reset LEDs shut off. I’m not worried about the Dr. Debug one any more due to your explanation, but for the other two this is truly odd.

        I am able to get into a Live session if I boot in from UEFI, and am even able to install onto my empty 8 GB stick. However, I then cannot boot from the Xubuntu-enabled stick. It seems that this happens if trying to boot from *any* USB device. Tried a different brand (Memorex) as well.

        I’ve gone ahead and ordered a HDD/optical drive/Windows 7 disk and will likely go that route, but in the meantime I want to see if I could give Linux a whirl. Perhaps this is a DOA mobo?

  14. Glenn says:

    Indeed, the problem was a reset IP address- one step smaller than the prev. Thanks, Frodo, big help, and to others, thanks for replies re issue.

    • FrodoBaggins says:

      Glad this worked!

      CryptoBadger, maybe the guide should include configuration of static IPs or some DNS solution?

      Thanks!

  15. Matt says:

    Im running the optimized windows settings and my 2×7950 are smoking fast.

    I loaded xubuntu and am getting about half of the hash rate. I get command not found error when I try the same settings in linux.

    Can you post optimized settings for Linux users that will get same hash rates as the windows settings you posted in your windows guide please?

    • CryptoBadger says:

      I also responded to your email, but just in case you didn’t get it:

      Just a guess, but if you’re getting half the hash rate in linux, it sounds like one of your GPUs isn’t actually hashing. Sometimes cgminer will just take your total hashrate and divide it between your GPUs – you can tell which ones aren’t working because their temperatures are much much lower than the one(s) that are actually doing work.

      If that is what is happening to you, then my guess is that you also don’t have anything plugged into the GPU(s) that aren’t hashing. Try plugging a monitor or dummy plug (see my hardware guide for instructions on how to make one) into every GPU, and then run this command:

      sudo aticonfig –adapter=all –initial

      Reboot, and hopefully everything will be working properly.

  16. DeStijl says:

    Hi, one thing i cant understand. There are new bitcoin hardware like:
    http://www.bitcoinx.com/bitcoin-mining-hardware/
    Isn’t it much better then rigs like you described here? They offer 5GH/s for 300$ which is the price of 1 video card here. Is there any trick? Quite soon with the commercially available hardware difficulty will raise so greatly so 2GH/s will be negligible.

    If I understand the situation wrong, then please explain it to me.

    Thank you.

    • CionXplorer says:

      Those rigs are only suitable for btc and not ltc. They do not support the “scrypt” protocol, which is necessay for mining litecoin.

      • DeStijl says:

        Thanks for info. But looks like BTC exchange rate affects LTC. So quite probably after rigs will be massively available btc will crash ltc exchange rate as well.

  17. mbc28607 says:

    cryptobadger I need your help $ bc28607@gmail.com please contact me $ Thanks

  18. Glenn says:

    Regarding future values for BTC, LTC: I believe I’ve read ltc will eventually be 4 times as many as Btc. I believe the intentional design of crypto currency to be finite, and therefore not expandable (versus government currencies which are being inflated through printing) is the unalterable key that will draw everyone in the world to eventually see these crypto currencies as safe havens relative to their dollars, yen, etc.
    I predict massive appreciation of these coins against every world currency over the years ahead. It seems logical to me that the natural 4 to 1 ration of ltc to btc will be in fact realized by a 4 to 1 equalization of their assigned value, so I’m betting that the ltc I mine today that are worth $3 now, will eventually settle to being worth 1/4 bitcoin, and will rise in that proportion as btc continues to appreciate against central bank inflated currencies. I see the actual value of my ltc today as “1/4 bitcoin”, and plan to hold them until that is reality.

  19. Richard says:

    Getting error, “(initramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live file system”, when trying to boot from usb on brand new mobo. the usb key works on my laptop and one other miner that has a hard drive. any ideas?

    • Richard says:

      I’m trying to boot xubuntu.

      • Richard says:

        I was also able to boot this machine from a Tails OS usb key. So I think my hardware is ok. I would use Tails except for lack of driver support.

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Make sure that the USB stick is in the USB 2.0 port (not the 3.0 port). If it already is, did you use UNetbootin? Some people have reported issues with it and the ASRock board. Give one of these other methods a try.

      • Richard says:

        It is in usb 2.0 port. I used Universal USB Installer by pendrivelinux.

        • Richard says:

          gigabyte board…

        • CryptoBadger says:

          Do you have another blank USB stick inserted (or a harddrive available) for the installer to install Xubuntu to?

          • Richard says:

            I tried to install to a hard drive from the usb stick and got the same error. I also tried this with another usb to and got the same result.

          • Richard says:

            Solved on page one:

            Johan Lindahl says:
            May 18, 2013 at 11:39 am

            This is not true, I mine with Xubuntu and a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3.

            I also had the described problem until I found a BIOS setting called IOMMU that was disabled by default. I just changed this to enabled in the BIOS and everything started to work, just like magic.

  20. Glenn says:

    Hi, i used your guide about a month ago. It works PERFECT !!

    But i only used 2 card and had 670kh each but now like you i wanted a upgrade to 3 cards. I shutdown the sever installed the 3the card and restared and went over the first command so the pc sees the 3th card. And rebooted and checked if he found the 3th and it showed it to. Then i did the few steps in cgminer and recognised the 3th card to but my rig only runs at 20kh for each card :-/ and the pc slows down really hard when i move the mouse in the screen. Or type really fast. So i took the 3th card out again and restarted and ran the same commands but now my rig only runs at 500kh for the 2 cards togheter. But i cant find what the problem could be :-/.

    • CryptoBadger says:

      You’ll need to run this:

      sudo aticonfig –adapter=all –initial

      And then reboot whenever you add or remove a video card. Also don’t forget to plug something into each GPU (monitor or dummy plug) if some of them aren’t hashing in cgminer (you can tell if their temperature is really low).

      • Glenn says:

        i tried it but my hashrate stay’s extremely low, mhm will try to mess with it this weekend, hope i get it fixed :/

        • Glenn says:

          haha, okj dont mind this im going to get me some dummy plugs.. its working again, but only on 2 will test on 3. Something totally different, xbuntu is now running with usb stick, but im running it on my RAID server, so usb and raid = way to slow.. but when i install xbuntu on my ssd i get an internal error, i used to get it on ubuntu, but thought it would go over if i use another OS like xbuntu but i got the internal error again. mabye somebody has a clue ? (i know its not the right place here so i dont exspect a awnser) 🙂

  21. Cerby says:

    I can’t seem to get my cgminer up and running at this point. http://prntscr.com/18qqmq is what I’m getting now, I don’t know what I can change around. I had problems originally with my second card showing up on the device list, and after I got around that I can’t seem to get either card to hash.

    • fher98 says:

      Give it a couple of minutes, seems like when youre new in some pools the “new block” message wont quit.

      • Cerby says:

        No, cgminer always responds with a hashrate if the gpus are up and running, and that screenshot is actually of my cgm alias display frozen about 5minutes after boot. I’m assuming its a driver/ask/cgminer issue so I’m reinstalling xubuntu and using the cgminer version listed in the thread instead of the latest stable.

  22. Eadmanday says:

    I am working on this for a school project. I hae everything installed but i can not get CGminer to run on starup. When ever i try to run it manually it says. “sleep: missing operand” asks for my Password and does nothing.

    Any ideas?

    • ezpacer says:

      Have the impression you are missing some of the command in your nano miner_launcher file. You might check it against the guide to be sure it is exactly as the guide shows. good luck

      • Eadmanday says:

        Ya it’s something in my bash scripts. i can run cgminer out of the folder with no issues just my scripts our not working. I will go back and check and find the mistake.

  23. fher98 says:

    Hi Crypto…

    Did a reinstall to another “bigger” USB… but after doing sudo aticonfig –adapter=all –odgt

    im getting

    ERROR – X needs to be running to perform AMD Overdrive(TM) commands

    I tried to google it around and all I can find its about the drivers and the AMD, APK… but not such luck with the answers… can you help me out?

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Are you using the Xubuntu image that I linked in my guide? X should be running by default.

      I’d expect to see that error if you tried to install a pure server flavor of linux (eg: Ubuntu Server, etc). Unfortunately the catalyst drivers require a GUI to be present to work properly.

  24. matt says:

    Im running cgminer xubuntu from usb 3.0 memory stick and it lags – running very slow and clunky. Also the hash rate is lower than windows 7. Any recommendations to fix this please?

    • CryptoBadger says:

      The Xubuntu desktop will be extremely slow while mining – since your video cards are being fully utilized by cgminer, they’ll be sluggish to draw desktop refreshes. Using SSH from another computer to administer your rig will resolve that, as it uses no GPU resources.

      As for lower mining performance in Xubuntu vs Windows, I’ve had a few people comment that they’re getting 10-15 Kh/sec less per GPU in linux. You can try installing version 2.8 of the catalyst drivers; they may improve your hashing speeds – I plan to update my linux guide next week if you’re unclear on how to go about that.

  25. Bryan says:

    Thanks again for all of your help!

    So I changed the PSU to a 1300W, added another 7950 MSI card. Wouldnt boot. Not sure what I did. I reinstalled xubuntu and now when i boot it pulls up a menu option “Ubuntu, Advanced options for Ubuntu, COnfiguration”. If I select advanced it takes me to Grub. So I am not auto loggin into Ubuntu now 🙁

    When I reinstalled it made me add a UEFI boot sector with at least 35 MB of space, so i made it 100mb. Not sure if I had to do that last time?

    Thoughts? Thanks!

    • Bryan says:

      So i reinstalled xubuntu and followed you guide again. System now detects 4 GPUs but I get the following readout

      /home$ aticonfig –adapter=all –odgt

      Adapter 0 – AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
      Sensor 0: Temperature – 72.00 C

      Adapter 1 – AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
      Sensor 0: Temperature – 73.00 C
      ERROR – Get temperature failed for Adapter 2 – AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series

      Adapter 3 – AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
      Sensor 0: Temperature – 72.00 C

      cgminer is only usng 3 of the miners. I tried running all the commands again, rebooted, updated and upgraded, rebooted. Any other ideas?
      I *think* the one in question is connected via PCIex1 using a powered riser. Could it be a bad ribbon? Or could it have to do with the 1x slot?

      Thanks!

      • CryptoBadger says:

        Do you have another riser that you can connect to test with? It should work fine with a 1x riser, but defective risers are fairly common, too.

        It’s also possible (although less likely) that the GPU itself is faulty. Try connecting it to the motherboard by itself to rule that possibility out.

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