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Total noob here

Noob + solo will probably lead to disappointment. Try kano.is first, then after you have mined some there, come back to solo. Soloing is hard... been 110+ days on that with ~25 THs and i'm still empty handed

but being on a pool mine vs solo mine is same thing right?
you point to pool address and let it mine away?
any special configuration you need?
It is not the same, on a solo pool you only get paid if you find a block, otherwise you get nothing. On a pool, you get paid for shares.
The difference is, IF you do hit a block on the solo pool you get the whole 25BTC.