Re: Building Cheap Miners : My "Secret"

Dell R815 Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop Installation Steps:

Go here to get Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
http://releases.ubuntu.com/16.04

Download the 64-bit PC (AMD64) desktop image
http://releases.ubuntu.com/16.04/ubuntu-16.04.6-desktop-amd64.iso

After downloading has completed: install it onto a USB stick so that you can boot from it

I use the free Rufus program: https://rufus.ie
https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/releases/download/v3.8/rufus-3.8.exe

Now put the Ubuntu USB stick into the USB port on the server front.

Now power up the server and when prompted press F11 to boot from the USB stick that has Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on it.

In the F11 boot menu select "Hard Drive" and then select the Front USB drive.

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You should now see Ubuntu booting.

When it has completed booting click on "Install Ubuntu"

On the next screen check mark the "download updates while installing Ubuntu" line.

On the "Installation Type" screen select "Something Else"

Select/Highlight "/dev/sdb" and click "New Partition Table"

Now Select "Free Space" and click the "+": Enter 975MB and "Swap Area"
Now again Select remaining "Free Space" and click the "+": "EXT4 Journaling File System" and "Mount Point" is "/" then continue

You will see that two partitions will be created: One is the Swap the Other is "EXT4" where everything else is installed to.
If you see more partitions go back and correct it. If you don't then sometime in the future you will run out of disk space.

Now continue with the installation.

Select your correct Time Zone and Keyboard Layout.

On the setup screen I do the following:

I leave "Your Name" blank

"Computer Name": R815-1
For each additional R815 I configure I change this to R815-2, R815-3, etc

Username: miner

I use logon name of: miner
If you use a different name then other commands will need "miner" changed to whatever you name it to.

Password: xxxx

Password is whatever you want and can remember: I use "xxxx" for simplicity.

I let the system autologon when booting

When Installation completes: reboot
Be sure to remove the installation Ubuntu USB stick from the server front USB port.

Wait for the initial boot of Ubuntu from the internal USB drive to complete.

Now do all Updates.

Either wait for the Update Icon to appear on the left side of the screen (in about 5 minutes) or force updates with the following commands:

T to open a terminal window then do these commands:

Code:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

When Updates have completed then do these command form a terminal window

Code:

sudo apt install shellinabox
sudo apt install mc

Shell in a box: https://www.tecmint.com/shell-in-a-box-a-web-based-ssh-terminal-to-access-remote-linux-servers
Usage: https://blog.homeatcloud.com/manuals/the-shellinabox-tool

Midnight Commander (MC): https://www.linode.com/docs/tools-reference/tools/how-to-install-midnight-commander
How to use MC: http://linuxcommand.org/lc3_adv_mc.php

Now Get the Server IP address with

Code:

hostname -I

Now do the following from a from a remote browser (FireFox, Chrome. Internet Explorer) on your local network https://:4200

This bring up a Shellinabox session.
Using Shellinabox simplifies setup as you can copy and paste from this guide using a right mouse click in the Shellinabox browser window.

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Install R384 Nvidia Driver - see if it already installed

Code:

nvidia-smi

Remove older Nvidia driver

If your graphic is supported, you can go ahead and remove all previously installed Nvidia drivers on your system. Enter the following command

Code:

sudo apt purge nvidia*

Add the graphics drivers PPA

Let us go ahead and add the graphics-driver PPA -

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers

And update

Code:

sudo apt update

Install (and activate) the latest Nvidia graphics drivers.
Enter the following command to install the version of Nvidia graphics supported by your graphics card

// Check here for Linux Nvidia Drivers

https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

// Check launchpadstatus here

https://twitter.com/launchpadstatus?lang=en

// Quadro 600

Code:

sudo apt install nvidia-384

Reboot your computer for the new driver to kick-in.

Code:

sudo reboot

You can check your installation status with the following command

Code:

lsmod | grep nvidia

If there is no output, then your installation has probably failed.
It is also possible that the driver is not available in your system's driver database.
You can run the following command to check if your system is running on the open source driver nouveau. If the output is negative (blank) for nouveau, then all is well with your installation.

Code:

lsmod | grep nouveau

Prevent automatic updates that might break the drivers by blocking minor version updates. Enter the following command

Code:

sudo apt-mark hold nvidia-384

sudo usermod -a -G video miner

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Disable graphical interface startup. I like to see the boot messages rather than a screen with a solid color and no indication it is doing anything for a long time.

I use Midnight Commander (mc) when I say edit. Use sudo mc if editing system files

// (Ubuntu 16.04) disable the boot splash

edit /etc/default/grub

remove 'quiet' and 'splash' from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line and add nomodeset

so, assuming you have no other boot parameters, it would look like

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset"

save that, then run

Code:

sudo update-grub

// Reboot System

Code:

sudo reboot