Bitcoin Mining on Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty" with poclbm and ATI

Updated 6/19/2011 - updated bitcoin app version to 0.3.23, simplified bitcoin setup directions

Updated 6/8/2011 - updated example app versions, clarified use of pools, clarified use of bitcoin standalone app, path cleanup, added link to headless mining guide

1. Introduction

Recently, I got interested in the new peer-to-peer digital currency, Bitcoin (read about it all about it at bitcoin.org if you're not familiar with it yet). Having decided to make use of my idling ATI graphics card for some bitcoin mining, I was able to cobble together a mining setup on Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" without too much trouble. It uses a standard miner app "poclbm", the Python OpenCL Bitminer.



Note that I already had a working official, ATI 'fglrx' graphics card driver package installed, so you'll want that taken care of before starting. I am also running the 32-bit version of Ubuntu; if you are on 64-bit, you can follow the 64-bit specific directions here (tested on 64-bit systems).

2. Install Ubuntu packages

Install required packages:

sudo aptitude install python-setuptools python-numpy \
subversion g++ libboost-all-dev

3. Install Bitcoin

Get the latest Bitcoin distribution, (0.3.23 as of this writing), unpack it to ~/bitcoin-0.3.23/, and set permissions.

cd ~ 
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/bitcoin/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.3.23/bitcoin-0.3.23-linux.tar.gz 
tar xzvf bitcoin-0.3.23-linux.tar.gz 
chmod +x bitcoin-0.3.23/bin/*/bitcoin*

Configuring bitcoin:

cd ~
mkdir -p .bitcoin

Make up user/password here if you like:

echo "rpcuser=user" >> .bitcoin/bitcoin.conf
echo "rpcpassword=password" >> .bitcoin/bitcoin.conf

Now we can run bitcoin in server mode,

~/bitcoin-0.3.23/bin/32/bitcoin -server & 

And wait...and wait...hours...until the current block chain is downloaded and verified by your bitcoin client to catch up with the rest of the network. In the meantime, you can continue installing the rest of the software required for mining.

4. Install python-jsonrpc library

Install python-jsonrpc from official Subversion repository:

cd ~
svn checkout http://svn.json-rpc.org/trunk/python-jsonrpc
cd python-jsonrpc/
sudo python setup.py install

5. Install AMD APP SDK

Grab the AMD APP SDK from the AMD website and install it:

64-bit:

cd ~
wget http://download2-developer.amd.com/amd/APPSDK/AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx64.tgz
tar xvzf AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx64.tgz

echo export AMDAPPSDKROOT=${HOME}/AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx64/ >> ~/.bashrc
echo export AMDAPPSDKSAMPLESROOT=${HOME}/AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx64/ >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${AMDAPPSDKROOT}lib/x86_64:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}' >> ~/.bashrc

source ~/.bashrc
cd /

sudo tar xfz $AMDAPPSDKROOT/icd-registration.tgz

32-bit:

cd ~
wget http://download2-developer.amd.com/amd/APPSDK/AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx32.tgz
cd ~
tar xzvf AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx32.tgz
cd AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx32/

echo export AMDAPPSDKROOT=${HOME}/AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx32/ >> ~/.bashrc
echo export AMDAPPSDKSAMPLESROOT=${HOME}/AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx32/ >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${AMDAPPSDKROOT}/lib/x86:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH' >> ~/.bashrc

source ~/.bashrc
     
cd /
sudo tar xfz $AMDAPPSDKROOT/icd-registration.tgz

6. Install pyopencl

Now you have to install pyopencl from source because the Ubuntu package depends on the Nvidia driver package, which will mess up our system if we are on ATI.

cd ~
wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/pyopencl/pyopencl-0.92.tar.gz#md5=0680f7272fe3ab5a3bcb0b6cfbd74994
tar xzvf pyopencl-0.92.tar.gz
cd pyopencl-0.92

32-bit configure:

./configure.py --cl-inc-dir=${AMDAPPSDKROOT}include --cl-lib-dir=${AMDAPPSDKROOT}lib/x86

64-bit configure:

./configure.py --cl-inc-dir=${AMDAPPSDKROOT}include --cl-lib-dir=${AMDAPPSDKROOT}lib/x86_64

Now build pyopencl:

make
sudo make install

7. Install poclbm command line miner

Get poclbm modules:

cd ~
mkdir poclbm
cd poclbm
wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/m0mchil/poclbm/raw/master/BitcoinMiner.cl
wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/m0mchil/poclbm/raw/master/BitcoinMiner.py
wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/m0mchil/poclbm/raw/master/poclbm.py
wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/m0mchil/poclbm/raw/master/sha256.py
cd ~

8a. Solo mining

When the block chain is downloaded fully, you can start up poclbm for solo mining:

python poclbm/poclbm.py -d 0 --user user --pass password

And wait a bit until you see khash/second appear.

8b. Pooled mining

To get more granularity from your mining results (i.e. the ability to make smaller earnings sooner, in exchange for a 0-3% fee), you can sign up for pooled mining at one of many pools, such as btcguild, btcmine, BitcoinPool, bitcoins.lc, or eligius. I recommend choosing one of the smaller pools in order to maintain health of the network, rather than favoring the largest pool by default. Search Google for "50% bitcoin hashpower problem" for more information on why this is important.

After you create an account at a pool, you'll generally need to create a separate worker for each miner that you run.

My poclbm command to mine in a pool looks like this:

python poclbm/poclbm.py -d 0 --host=[pool hostname] --port=8332 --user=[worker] --pass='[worker password]'

9. Final notes and related resources

After I wrote this, I found another complete guide for Ubuntu 11.04, targeted at 64-bit users, including the ATI fglrx driver installation if you haven't done that yet. You can find it on the bitcoin.org forums.

A guide for headless mining on Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit also exists on the bitcoin.org forums.

Debian users may also be interested in LinuxCoin, a ready-to-go Bitcoin client/mining distro based on Debian Squeeze.

Any problems following the directions, or comments, let me know. Happy mining!