Put Linux on Your Stick

When I decided to start mining part of my motivation was a interest in putting together a Linux computer.  As this would be a dedicated  miner CPU and storage speed was not of concern.  A entire operating system on a USB stick, how cool is that.   Overall the operation is quite simple.  Get a 1 Gig and a 8 (or more) Gig  USB stick, choose your distribution of Linux, and a software program to load your Linux distribution onto your USB and you are ready to turn that rig on!

Whoa, hold on, there is a little more to consider here.  Now there are probably some real technical gurus out there the will kill this, but they weren't around during my days of trial and error, so this is what worked for me.

The first thing that hung me up was the 32bit operating system.  Many guides revolve around this, but many were written before the release of the latest cgminer 3.7.2, which so happens to be a 64 bit distribution.  Now you can re-compile cgminer  to 32 bit, but this was a little over whelming for me(actually over my head), especially after many hours.  It was just easier to install 64bit and get over it. 

The other thing is patience!  From start to thinking you are going to start mining is going to take a few hours.  Not a lot of effort on your part, but there are reboots, installs, and updates that just take time due to the natural slowness of a USB stick.  Just remember you only paid $10 for this stick,so don't expect greased lightning.

So, choose your Linux distribution of choice.  I elected to use xubuntu - http://xubuntu.org/  Download it and save it in a spot you can remember.

I did have issues getting a 64 bit distribution installed with some installers, I won't name names but it would default to a 32 bit install and even when selecting the 64 bit file that I saved above it would give a error that this distribution is not accepted.

So, I found this piece of software did the trick for me, no games, no messing around.  You pick what you want and it will create your Linux bootable USB: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/  I used a 1 Gig USB stick for this.  Haven't seen any issues, and be sure to save this stick as you can use it to get multiple rigs started.

You may need to change your MOBO Bios to select USB to boot from, but my two different cards booted right up.  Xubuntu will ask if you wish to "try" or "install".  At this point put your 8 Gig USB in hit install, and you are off an running.  I did connect to the internet and selected the option to install updates during the install process, though there were more updates once completed.  Depending on your internet speed you should have a Linux computer ready to start installing necessary mining software and tools in a hour or two.