Burn this image to a CD, or write it to a USB stick, and when booted a system will automatically begin mining bitcoins by using poclbm.

You can find the latest version at http://live-miner.github.io/. If something doesn’t work, file a bug or send me an email. If you are feeling generous, send spare BTC to 1MjtnhbdVAL21meEBnhHwfMSovN7kYtrH6.

Requirements

An x86_64 PC with an AMD Radeon HD 5000, 6000 or 7000 series graphics card.

Downloads

Download live-miner here!

Release 2: 2013-04-08

  • Updated poclbm to support the Stratum mining protocol

  • Added support for multiple graphics cards

  • Added the ability for the user to provide their own xorg.conf

  • Changed window manager to i3

  • Allow reconfiguration at runtime

Release 1: 2012-08-20

  • The initial release!

Configuration

Configuration happens in two places:

  1. Boot parameters

  2. Configuration file (live/live-miner.conf)

See live/live-miner.conf on the live medium for the list of options specific to live-miner, and their corresponding boot parameters. The system can be reconfigured at run time if you edit /etc/live-miner.conf and then restart the GUI (press Windows+Shift+E).

In order to escape spaces in boot parameters, use octal. For instance:

live-miner.urls=http://user:pass@host0:port\040http://user:pass@host1:port

Values from boot parameters override values from the file. Whether you use the boot parameters or the configuration file will depend on how you choose to boot live-miner.

See the man pages for live-boot and live-config for more boot parameters. Of particular note is toram; if you use this then you can remove the USB stick or CD/DVD once the system has booted. This might be useful if you have several machines, but only one USB stick!

USB stick

Write binary.img to your USB stick. On Linux, you can do something like this:

dd if=binary.img of=/dev/sdX

This will erase anything already on the device, so make sure you aren’t accidentally overwriting your hard disk! On Windows you can use a program such as Image Writer for Windows.

Once the image is written, remove and re-insert the USB stick. You should now be able to edit live/live-miner.conf. Once you have done so, boot from the USB stick and your computer should begin mining.

CD/DVD

While binary.iso can be written to a CD and booted without any further changes, you will have to do your configuration at the boot menu. To do so, press the Tab key during the 5-second boot countdown, and then append boot parameters to the list that appears. Press Enter to actually boot.

If you will be rebooting often, or have several computers to configure, you can avoid the inconvenience of manual configuration by remastering the CD with an edited live/live-miner.conf, or by booting with a different method.

Network

The netboot archive contains two directories: debian-live, the contents of which should be shared over NFS; and tftpboot, the contents of which should be available via TFTP. Setting this up requires some co-ordination between your DHCP, TFTP and NFS servers. I use the same machine running Debian for all three, on 10.0.0.1. My setup is something like the following:

Install isc-dhcp-server and put the following in /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf:

subnet 10.0.0.0 netmask 255.255.0.0 {
    range 10.0.1.1 10.0.1.254;
    option routers 10.0.0.1;
    option domain-name-servers 10.0.0.1;
    filename "pxelinux.0";
    next-server 10.0.0.1;
}

Install tftpd-hdpa and move the contents of tftpboot to /srv/tftp. Modify /srv/tftp/live.cfg to look like this:

label live-miner
menu label ^live-miner
kernel /live/vmlinuz
append initrd=/live/initrd.img boot=live config quiet netboot=nfs nfsroot=10.0.0.1:/srv/live-miner

Move the contents of debian-live to /srv/live-miner. Edit /srv/live-miner/live/live-miner.conf to configure your server URLs and miner options. Install nfs-kernel-server and export that directory via NFS by adding the following to /etc/exports:

/srv/live-miner 10.0.0.0/16(ro,async,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)

Run exportfs -r after editing /etc/exports. Finally, configure your machines for network booting in their BIOS, and reboot them!

Overriding xorg.conf

During boot, live-miner will look for AMD graphics cards and write out an /etc/X11/xorg.conf that combines them all into one ServerLayout section.

If you provide live/xorg.conf on the live medium, it will be used instead of the autogenerated file. An example config file is provided at live/xorg.conf.example.

Building your own image

Most of the heavy lifting is done by the excellent tools provided by the Debian Live project. I’m building the images on a Debian wheezy system, but any reasonably modern Linux system with live-build 3.0 installed should work.

After installing live-build, make, asciidoc and git:

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/live-miner/live-miner.git
$ cd live-miner
$ make

This will build three images (in output/{hdd,iso,netboot}) and collect the source archives in output/source. Unless you really want all three and/or are planning on distributing your built image to a third party, you can save time by building just what you want: run make output/stamp-hdd, make output/stamp-iso or make output/netboot instead.

Important legal stuff: If you are going to distribute the images you build then be sure to do the full build of all three binary images, plus the source archives. If you distribute a binary image to a third party, you must also (offer to) give them the source archives as well. This is necessary because live-miner contains materials licensed under the GPL (and similar licenses).

FAQ

How do I use this crazy GUI?

Windows+Enter will fire up a new terminal; Windows+D will open a quick prompt for running other programs. To restart the GUI from scratch, press Windows+Shift+E. To move the focus between windows, press Windows+Arrow keys. See the i3 User’s Guide for the full details, and the i3 Reference Card for quick reference.

Acknowledgements

The Debian Live project, for making it incredibly easy to build a custom Debian Live CD.

The Debian project, for being Debian!

m0mchil, for poclbm.

Mark Visser, for adl3.

Obligatory legal mumbo-jumbo

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute live-miner for any purpose is hereby granted. Note that live-miner includes many different programs. Their exact terms of use are described in the individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.