Topic: Total Lack of Linux Software (Read 2535 times)

However, that is untrue. For the slow kids who have trouble using Linux, or using it without a windowing system, the time they lose would surely be made up during CHKDSK, waiting for Windows to boot, reinstalling software, reinstalling the entire OS when the registry is trashed, or reinstalling from whatever else is certain to go wrong.

Anyway, the amount of time it takes to install, update, and manage even a small cluster of Linux boxes is miniscule compared to the same task with Windows. You don't need some fancy ghost imaging software, sysprep, or waiting to do manual installs. You just PxE boot everyone off of a single image, or dd a single image onto each machine and you're running when you finish your beer. Sure, you can mostly do that with Windows, but it's not going to be free and neither is all of the time it will take. Setting up a single machine takes the same things it takes on a Windows machine: drivers, ATI Stream SDK, and a miner. You don't even need AMDOverdriveCtrl or RadeonVolt.

I'm currently bashing my brains out trying to get GUIminer to work in LinuxCoin.

I wish I were smarter.

This mostly seems to confirm the old addage that linux is only free if your time is worthless to be quite honest. How much performance do you tangibly lose if you just use a windows box that works to whatever extent it works, but reliably so?

1) install 2.4 sdk, drivers, AMDOverdriveCtrl, aticonfig and RadeonVolt (only works on reference cards like my ASUS)
2) make stock AMDOverdriveCtrl profile with only memory speed changed to 300 and then load it
3) aticonfig --od-enable ./radeonvolt --vcore 1.125 aticonfig -odsc 980,300
4) ?!?!??!
5) Profit

First i tried to use linux for mining. I tried to go through on almost every how to manual what i found here on the forums but every time there was missing peace and the install failed or the app couldn't started.

To get the 2.4 SDK package up and running was impossible after 1 day. I decided to use 2.3 and the 10.4 driver for my ATI HD 5870  card. 1/2 day later i gave up and put windows on the HW.

It is much quicker and easier to manage everything on Windows. If you are not familiar with unix don't try to use it for mining.

Thanks, yes the problem was that I had older drivers, not 11.6. I tried to upgrade following the instructions in the Unofficial ATI Wiki ( http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Debian ), copy and pasted each command, but it didn't work out for me, so I just downloaded the latest version of linuxcoin and re-installed it from scratch, it has the 11.6 Catalyst drivers and then I used aticonfig to set the clock to speeds similar to what was stable under windows, but couldn't get it as high as in windows without freezing. I'm pretty happy with this still (I get 401Mhashes on one of my 5850s, 389 on the other), thanks for the info swivel.

Aticonfig says you have to stay in the limits that it suggests, but using 11.6 it lets you send commands to set the clock outside those limits, no flashing. Enjoy!

Also use aticonfig --od-commitclocks to write the new values to the card and they will boot with the faster clock speed, make sure that the new numbers are stable or you may run into problems.

You can overclock beyond BIOS limits using the new Catalyst 11.6 drivers without having to reflash. You can underclock memory to 300 using AMDOverdrivectrl. Not sure you gain much going below 300. There are also 3-5% gains with some of the changes to the phatk kernel. Do a search.

If you're going through the trouble of installing the latest drivers, setting up the APP SDK and compiling PyOpenCL to get your miner working why bother with a GUI when a 2 line shell script will do.

Thanks for that, but more useful would have been HOW you got over 900 Mhz on linux. Everyone on these boards is using aticonfig or for the noobs that like a GUI AMDOcerdriveCtrl, neither of which go over 900. For fun I stuck my 5850 into windows and used Guiminer, and Sapphire Trixx. Turns out my card can clock way over 900, in fact Im running at 1015 @408Mhashes/s .  So obviously us noobs are missing something and it may be obvious to others, we went through the searching, couldnt find an answear so:  How can I properly overclock my 5850 on linux over 900Mhz?
 This is why people come to these forums, to learn from others.

Sorry to burst your bubble but those who request GUI's for linux are either people who are honest and can't afford windows or simply use linux for the wrong reasons...

I see a lot of noobs, to say the least, try to use linux and fail misserable... why? because they think of it as windows and for some reason are incapable of searching for knowledge without resorting to asking on an online forum.
Remebering a few commandline args isn't that hard... hell i was a complete linux retard 1 week ago and now i got SSH, apache, mysql, php, mining and over(down)clocking @ 1000 core 300 mem and 1,18 Vcore running stable on my reference ASUS 5850 and all i did was search on google and try out stuff on my own...

Bottomline is that technically challenged users shouldn't attempt to run linux and then whine about it being difficult.

/rendrant

Also the whole point in running mining on linux is that you can avoid having a GUI and thus make the overclocking more stable, for example my card couldn't get over 350 mhash/s on windows without being unstable and now i'm rocking 388 mhash/s because the linux box have no GUI

I am very happy with AMDOverdriveCtrl but its lackign some things. You can not check the tempreatures of the card other than the core and it does not tell you current as for example a windows program like gpu-z does. Its the only thing Im missing in linux.

Well i didn't know that amdoverddrivectrl could index card so thanks for that, but other than that your pretty snotty for no reason.

Hey Kiv I use your software regularly on windows and it works great so if im correct ill just start up a new thread pledge, and ask people to pledge btc for linux guiminer support?

I write the noob gui program GUIMiner

To those saying Linux users don't want GUIs, you're wrong. While the stereotypical Linux user is too much of a macho power user to use a GUI, the average technically challenged user definitely does and I get requests for it all the time.

But here's why I don't have Linux support as my first priority: packaging.

I can throw four miner backends and the GUI frontend into a little self-extracting EXE and have confidence that anyone can get my program going just by double-clicking the EXE.

On Linux... people have to figure out how to get the drivers working (which is confusing, which one do you pick) and then the hassle is just beginning because people have to figure out how install dependencies like PyOpenCL and wxPython and compile the backends, etc etc.

In fact GUIMiner works pretty well on Linux but I don't advertise it because I don't want to have to troubleshoot people's problems where their PyOpenCL install is linked against the wrong proprietary driver or some such nonsense.

I'm hoping there will be a nice solution to this in the future like bundling it pre-installed with LinuxCoin or something but until then, Windows has superior usability.

If you really want to see robust Linux support for the miner, put up a bounty and we'll talk Otherwise there's not much motivation for me to boot my Linux partition when I have a perfectly good Windows install right here.

aticonfig --od-enable, AmdOverdriveCtrl underclocks mem straight under 300, not unlock bios is needed for that

each an every one with the right tools, the problem is overclocking, RBE is used to fix that

I'm talking about RBE and atiflash. RBE is windows only, atiflash is DOS.
In case you'd like to overclock the core over the vendor limits, and have only linux at your hand you take VBox and your favourite Win VM, download a bios off techpower up, you use RBE on it to unlock overclock limits, you get yourself a SystemRescueCD, FreeDOS is on it and you flash your cards with atiflash. Wouldn't be any different if you had only Windows at your disposal. And this is only in case you'd like to overclock above the limits.

You didn't read the board, didn't get your facts straight. AMDOverdriveCtrl as well as aticonfig accept card index as a parameter.

The rest of you posting if just some random blah which resulted in you not reading up. There are step by step howtos for Ubuntu, and quite few of them, right here, on this forum.

Go figure now.

What the hell??? did i personally offend you?? Amd overdrive doesnt underclock low enough for memory or high enough for clock speeds? what bios allows you do underclock memory to 300? Or are you saying that this easy to use software requires me to first flash the card which voids the warranty? And what facts was i wrong about? Im not even sure how to use overdrive for 5 or 6 cards. Which is another reason why i like gui over cli i don't have to enter command line and enter all my information 6 times for all the different setting of the cards. You don't have to comment if you don't want to i was just locking for friendly miner's to point me in the correct direction or to ask them what make ubuntu harder to program for. I am by no means an good at linux i got it going after 3 days of trying but i thought windows was far easier because of the noob gui programs. geez

AMDOverdriveCtrl+aticonfig is perfectly fine for a tuned/unlocked BIOS. You can adjust your fans, clockspeed, memspeed and the voltages.
And you can do it over ssh, no displays, no dummyplugs required. Stripped down Debian runs perfectly fine from a 4GB thumb drive, no HDD that draws power is required.
"GUI Mining" is absolutely pointless, and the gui is only an interface for a CLI miner.
So get your facts straight, go study the guides, read the board and don't be a douche.

Some Overclocking software comparable to msi afterburner. And Something similar to phoenix rising.

CLI >>> GUI

What are you looking for?

amd overdrive is a pretty lackluster overclocking program pales in comparasion to msi afterburner can ony overclock/underclock as well as manufacture intends. If all miners are on linux why isnt there more programs for miner made to work on linux?

Um, nearly ALL of the miners run on Linux.