{"id":152,"date":"2017-12-26T19:22:58","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T19:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2miners.com\/blog\/?p=152"},"modified":"2022-12-08T17:27:14","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T17:27:14","slug":"hive-os-linux-mining-platform-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2miners.com\/blog\/hive-os-linux-mining-platform-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Hive OS Linux Mining Platform Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before getting to Hive OS, let me start with a short preface about Windows. When computers came into my life, there was MS-DOS. Then I remember how excited I was about OS\/2 by IBM, but later came Windows and ruined it all for me, so I switched to Mac OS and forgot about Windows for a long time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But when mining came along, I started using Windows again. Of course, I used Windows 10 for my first rig, as most beginning miners do. I heard about Linux mining platforms too, but I didn\u2019t even consider them \u2013 too many issues with hardware and software.<\/p>\n

So I set up and configured and tested my Windows 10 mining rig. I also installed TeamViewer that helps manage rigs remotely.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After my first rig, then came the second one, also with Windows 10 and Teamviewer. After testing the second rig, I set up the remote management for it as well. By that time I started to get the idea of what I don\u2019t like about Windows 10.<\/p>\n

Windows 10 Mining Rig Setup<\/h2>\n

What I don\u2019t like:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I was surprised by the way system settings are saved in Windows 10. For example, I turned off Windows Defender and Windows Update, but on one of the rigs, the system was still continually downloading updates. It even got stuck a couple of times because of that, because Defender was often trying to stop Claymore<\/a> from accessing the Internet.<\/li>\n
  2. At times Teamviewer had difficulty connecting to the remote device that denied access to it. But the rig itself, judging by the pool information, kept working. The lack of remote control was annoying!<\/li>\n
  3. To change miner or algorithms quickly, I had to go to one rig at a time and then reboot the miner with the right settings.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Of course, this is just my personal opinion, and one may decide for himself to what extent these problems are relevant to him.<\/p>\n

    Here is what I liked about Windows 10:<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. System operation speed is excellent, but this is probably due to the SSD drive, not Windows 10 itself.<\/li>\n
    2. Overclocking the GPU by using Afterburner. This function is useful, especially if you save several presets for different algorithms beforehand.<\/li>\n
    3. You can download the official version of Windows 10 on the Microsoft website; it also happens to handle mining tasks pretty well.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      While planning on building my third rig, I started to look for alternatives to Windows 10, and thanks to this guy I met in a chat room, I learned about the Miners Hive OS<\/a> project. He just happened to be the author of an article about the Ledger Hardware Wallet as well, so he knows his stuff.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      Hive OS – Windows 10 Alternative for Mining Rigs<\/h2>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      This example is a Linux based on Ubuntu distribution, which offers its users some excellent perks right from the start:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Online rig control and management through the website hifeos.farm<\/a>.<\/li>\n
      2. The integrated hashrate watchdog that reboots the miner software or the entire rig when the hashrate is down. It also supports hardware watchdogs.<\/li>\n
      3. It supports a significant number of miner software for AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards,<\/li>\n
      4. It launches and operates from any USB drive that is at least 8 GB.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        I went to the project\u2019s website hiveos.farm<\/a> to learn more about it and decided to use Linux to build my third rig.<\/p>\n

        Setting Up and Running Hive OS<\/h2>\n

        The installation process is straightforward \u2013 go to\u00a0https:\/\/download.hiveos.farm\/<\/a><\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/p>\n

        The first two files stand for the Windows tool that saves an image to a flash drive \/ hard drive. All the other files are various Hive OS versions. Keep in mind that they the list is in ascending order, so the latest versions are at the very end!<\/p>\n

        Download HDDRawCopy and hive-0.5-03-20171029 (if your Internet connection is not very stable, you may choose to download the image using a torrent file).<\/p>\n

        Then save the image using HDDRawCopy to any USB flash drive that is at least 8 GB. Now we are ready to launch Linux on our rig.<\/p>\n

        All you have to do is just get the rig going using a USB flash drive, and Hive OS will configure itself automatically. Unlike Windows, Hive OS allows you to set up the rig with all 7 GPUs connected! No need to add one GPU after another. When I tried to set up Win 10 with all 7 GPUs mounted, it got stuck, so I had to put one GPU at a time, reboot, wait for drivers to install and so on \u2014 Hive OS turned out to be much easier to handle!<\/p>\n

        To see the configuration process you can connect a hardware monitor. It\u2019s essential to connect it to the graphics card that is in the first PCIe-16x slot. Starting from the version 0.5 it\u2019s also possible to connect a monitor to the integrated graphics adapter.<\/p>\n

        You can also do without monitor \u2013 when I was installing Hive OS on the second rig, I controlled it remotely using SSH. Another option is the VNC Viewer, but I prefer SSH.<\/p>\n

        SSH is a great way to manage your rig directly. If the rig and the central computer operate on the same network, you can access the rig using the Terminal or SSH client.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        ssh user@x.x.x.x \u2014 where \u2018x.x.x.x\u2019 is the rig IP.<\/p>\n

        The Hive OS default password is \u20181\u2019.<\/p>\n

        With remotely installed rigs, you can set up remote access using OpenVPN or Hamachi.<\/p>\n

        While waiting for the installation process to end, let’s create an account on\u00a0hiveos.farm<\/a><\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/p>\n

        After registration, you\u2019ll see the dashboard that lets you manage all of your rigs.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

        In the top menu is your current account, balance, and the following menu entries:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

        Reload \/ Monitor \/ Stats \/ Rigs \/ Wallets<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

        I went to \u2018Wallets\u2019<\/strong> to configure my miners. Keep in mind, that Wallets <\/em>for Hive are not wallets for cryptocurrencies \u2014 they are config files for miners, which you can use later for all your rigs!<\/em><\/p>\n

        You can create as many wallets as you want with different settings depending on the pool and the currency.<\/p>\n

        There are already a few example wallets on the website, so I just used one of them to create my first wallet, making some changes to suit my needs:<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/p>\n

        So you have two options to choose from: you can either use an example wallet or create a new wallet from scratch:<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/p>\n

        Choose a name for your wallet and put it in the \u2018Name\u2019<\/strong> field in the upper left corner.<\/p>\n

        I recommend using a name that in the future will let you quickly choose the right wallet from the list \u2014 one wallet could be for ETH mining on 2Miners<\/a>, and another one for WhaleCoin<\/a> mining and so on, so it\u2019s a good idea to reflect this information in your wallet names for your convenience.<\/p>\n

        Next, you can add your email address to the \u2018Email for pool %EMAIL%\u2019 field in the upper right corner. Some pools might use it for authorization, but I haven’t seen that yet.<\/p>\n

        The most important fields are the three fields where you put wallet addresses for the cryptocurrencies that you are going to mine.<\/p>\n

        Ethereum wallet address %EWAL%<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 here you should write the wallet address for ETH or something ETH-like \u2013 ETC, ETP, or MUSICOIN. Putting \u2018%EWAL%\u2019 there will let you use this address in miner settings.<\/p>\n

        ZCash wallet address %ZWAL%<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 wallet address for Equihash currency.<\/p>\n

        Another coin wallet address %DWAL%<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 wallet address for the coin you are going to dual mine along with the main Dagger-Hashimoto coin.<\/p>\n

        I strongly recommend checking everything twice before going to miner settings.<\/em><\/p>\n

        By default the system has the following miners:<\/p>\n