Topic: Linux vs. Windows in mining? (Read 3790 times)

I have a medium size farm, 9 dedicated rigs plus my main workstation. I have run several versions of BAMT, win 8.1 and win 7. BAMT was the most stable when I didn't need to touch the systems. The issues I ran into was the miner not restarting, the system hanging up on a warm boot and lots of usb drives becoming corrupt due to the system hanging up or a random power outage. I gave up when 3/4 of my rigs didn't come back up due to file system corruption after a power outage while I was at work. Win 8 I hate using due to metro and I didn't see any performance difference one way or the other.

Win 7 required some driver modifications to go over 4 cards but was otherwise fine. A technet sub took care of the licenses and I am booting the 9 dedicated systems off an existing ISCSI array. Differencing disks makes for a deployment time measured in seconds and the array is redundant to minimize downtime. The only downside is I like to keep everything partitioned in different VLAN's which prevented using IPXE or CCBOOT with the on board NIC so i had to invest an extra $15 per system for a used Intel NIC from ebay. The other nice thing about windows is I can use CGwatcher and the full functionality of CGremote which was severely limited with Linux based clients.

I am using windows 7. I never used linux or mac. So windows is my only option.

If your low on ram and don't have a spare hard drive, then BAMT Linux on USB and other variants that can run on USB are best in this situation.

Honestly, no real major performance in running either one, just a preference aspect.

Honestly it doesn't really matter. To those people who say "Linux is cleaner/faster" may be right (from a resource usage perspective) but that doesn't matter for mining. Mining uses the GPU to do hash calculations. Your system isn't going to mine faster just because it has more free RAM. That being said, you can mine via USB on a Raspberry PI which runs Linux (and can't run Windows AFAIK).

So if you feel comfortable with Linux or want to learn at the expense of some hashing time, go for Linux. If not, Windows is just fine.

IF you have a supported configuration. If you have it will literally plug and play. If not you're on your own, and for the average user it can be a bit daunting without the necessary knowledge.

I've not said Windows is easier, just that I've got identical hardware that I have both Linux and Windows on. And for me, there has been very little difference.

That said, for no apparent reason my 750Ti's in the Linux rig suddenly dropped to around 50Khash per card last week and seemed to be stuck at that level. I've set it up from scratch again and it's back to normal, but still puzzled as to why it happened.

Also, in response to an earlier comment -

SSH isn't already running on most standard distributions. It's in the repositories, but still needs installing. It's just as quick as putting my usb drive in and running the VNC installer.
Virus scanner? I don't use them on the Windows rig, because well, it's unneeded. Never had a problem. Never access anything other than the pool I'm running on.
Linux also stores temporary files and logs that add space - no more than a Windows machine. If you're not running much (Cudaminer and the driver) then nothing builds up.
No wasting time installing drivers as everything is already included - not strictly true. The standard driver that 8.1 installed for my 750Ti turns out to be the best one available - the nVidia driver broke it when I updated.
Windows 8 reorders your GPU's? I've never had a problem - my GPUs have always stayed in the correct order, and as I run different kernel settings for each card I'd notice quite quickly if this was happening.
Dummy plugs? It's not a Windows problem, it's how the driver has been written. Some AMD cards need them, but it's down to the driver. All of my running rigs, 1 Windows and 2 Linux have never needed them.
The comment about unnecessary peripherals - how is the OS relevant when you're running headless? All my machines have power and network only connected.
Not sure of the relevance of the hard drive comment. Linux will also run on a hard drive. All of my rigs run on SSDs - the power draw is minimal.
Resource usage? Linux also has background processes running. Try running top when your miner is supposedly idle... Both my miners run at around 30% CPU usage on average - both OS's have to manage themselves on an ongoing basis.

...and yes, I get much better hash with similar hardware on Linux at home compared to my rigs at work on WIndows.
It may be similar, but not the same? One of my Linux rigs and the Windows rig is identical, and on the same network. Couldn't get a better comparison.

As I said earlier, I'm not for a fanboi war as I'm on both sides. Believe it or not, I used to be almost as much of a Linux advocate than Richard Stallman, but in my later years I've become more open minded. I'm a fan of running the best OS for the job. I'm just not convinced that either edges it for me when mining as I've not seen compelling evidence either way. Bear in mind that for me, the comparison is between Linux and Windows 8.1, I can't comment on earlier versions of Windows as I've not used them for mining.

One of the problems of comparing Linux with Windows is that a lot of FUD about both OS's is brought up. Things like resource usage, viruses and temp files for instance. The experience most people have with Windows is either that they have a family PC running it or use a Windows PC at work. And for most, it's got a lot of software installed, an anti virus and utility programs that the manufacturer probably installed. Compare that with a Linux PC that you build yourself and it's no surprise that Linux runs far better.

linux stability and reliability to mine coins.

True, super easy. few mins and you are ready.

LOL at people saying windows is easier, how would you know you probably never used BAMT/SMOS/PIMP etc.

for mining just linux :|

Windows, because some coins don't have a Linux wallet

Honestly?

I used linux to test, and with a little background in it, i didn't see any big reward...
Got Windows 7 and i manage 700Khash from both my 7950. could even go higher but temperatures get too high.

Also for a newbie whats easier to configure? Install win7, teamviewer/VNC and cg watcher?
Or fiddle on linux?

Its not a matter about Linux VS windows, who's better, its a matter about performance and easiness.

don't crap me.....

Linux users always get better results.

i say windows because

EASY and FAST

Much better Monitoring and remote control cgwatcher+cgremote

BETTER KH/s for me at least.

Better tweaking voltages,clocks.

W7/W8 vs Ubuntu, Ubuntu 5-8% faster on X11.

Seems like win8 has done it this time, i also run on win8.1 on kids machine testing CPU coin in 1 week mine and to be honest i didnt see any difference.

I have not tried linux and would like to know too, but I read many places saying linux is better cause its more stable. Thats all..

I've read mining on Linux gives higher hashrate if you're using Nvidia cards, cudaminer and compile from source. You also don't need to have a valid Windows license. You also get away with less ram and an cheap small USB pen.

Windows has better utilities for voltage tweak, remote access and monitoring. Then, "it just works" without the need for struggling with the installation

For a like for like comparison, I've got two identical miners, both on the same hardware, running 6 x nVidia 750Ti's each.

I'll declare an interest - I'm also a Linux fan with LPI certification. Not that this matters much, but the result was a bit of a surprise to me and I don't want this to turn into a fanboi battle - I have enough of that with my iPhone owning work colleagues!

One of my miners runs Windows 8.1 (I had a spare licence), and the other runs Xubuntu. Each were built within a couple of weeks of each other and have been running for a few weeks now.

To be honest, there's very little in it.  Most days both are generating between 1500-1800 KHash. There are some days when the Windows miner will do better, some days the Linux miner will do better. I know it's only a small sample, but I'm not seeing any significant difference between the two. I can't comment on earlier versions of either Windows or Xubuntu or any other flavour of Linux.

It may be the choice of hardware. It may be driver support. It may even be that MS have finally got it right. Or none of that and the mining god just likes me.

That said, I'm in the process of setting up a 3rd miner on different hardware which I'm running into problems with (probably dodgy risers). This will also run Xubuntu so I'll have a better comparison shortly.

In my advice, the best thing to do is to use the OS that you're most comfortable with. You could also dual boot and do your own comparisons or boot a Live distribution from a memory stick. There's no point trying to configure something that you may not be comfortable with or use to it's full potential.

Every one have is good side n bad.

If u need PC just for mining LINUX is the right one, but if u need little more gaming for example the its WINDOWS.

Linux is better