Category: hardware

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How to mine Bitcoin in Ubuntu using OpenCL and Bitcoinminer.py

Bitcoin is a form of decentralize digital currency, so unlike other digital currency services (like e-gold), bitcoin is not susceptible to be frozen, seized or invalidated. Bitcoin can be transfered transfered directly from person to person directly without intermediaries.

Bitcoin are generated over the internet by application called bitcoin miners using a set of algorithm to ensure that the number of generated bitcoin is within predictable and limited range. Though with the numbers of bitcoin in circulation today means that it would require significant processing power to generate bitcoins, it doesn’t stop anybody who are willing to try and mine them.

For a brief introduction to Bitcoin, please watch :

Bitcoin Miner on Ubuntu ?
Enter OpenCL and Bitcoinminer.py which allows bitcoin to be mined using a much more efficient GPU power (certain models of Nvidia and ATI graphic cards only, with appropriate drivers).

Step 1: To install the miner, you need to “install python-pyopencl subversion.

Step 2: Then you need to use subversion to obtain python-jsonrpc, by running:

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

Step 3: Then you need to generate bitcoin.conf file:

cd ..
mkdir .bitcoin
echo "rpcuser=username" > .bitcoin/bitcoin.conf
echo "rpcpassword=password" >> .bitcoin/bitcoin.conf

Step 4: After that, download BitcoinMiner files

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

Step 5: Download bitcoin server for linux

wget http://iweb.dl.sourceforge.net/project/bitcoin/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.3.19/bitcoin-0.3.19-linux.tar.gz
tar xvf bitcoin-0.3.19-linux.tar.gz
~/bitcoin-0.3.19/bin/64/bitcoin -server&

Step 6: Then finally, running the miner

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

The parameter -d 0 denotes that the miner will use GPU #1 for its bitcoin mining generation, increment it to -d 1 for GPU #2 and so forth. Change the “password” and “username” parameter from Step 3 and Step 6 appropriately to keep people from reaping the fruits (read: steal bitcoins) of your mining operation.

For more information about mining bitcoins and about Bitcoin in general, please visit : WeUseCoins website

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Enable Hardware Notification on Ubuntu Desktop when plugging devices – udev-notify

udev-notify enables hardware notification on desktop whenever devices are plugged to the computer. It provides a convenient way for users to get visual feedback on whether the devices has been successfully recognized by the computer or otherwise.

udev-notify is known to be compatible with Debian and Ubuntu (to some extend Fedora 15) under GNOME and XFCE. udev-notify display the type,name and model of the device connected and recognized by the computer on the desktop.

Udev
Udev
Udev
Udev

Installing udev-notify

echo "deb http://download.learnfree.eu/repository/skss / #SKSS" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
wget http://download.learnfree.eu/repository/skss/repo.pub.asc -q -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install udev-notify

And you may try plugging in devices to your computer to see if it works!

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CPU and Memory monitor on Ubuntu Panel and Unity on Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

Unity users can easily monitor CPU and Memory usage by using indicator-sysmonitor application.

Conky mypapit ubuntu

To install it, you just need to add alexeftimie PPA repository using these simple command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexeftimie/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-sysmonitor

Note that this doesn't work on previous Ubuntu 10.xx releases.

Alternatively, you can install Conky by running the command:
sudo apt-get install conky

Conky mypapit ubuntu
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Ubuntu: How to erase CD-RW/DVD-RW from Command-line

Here’s an easy way to erase CD-RW and DVD-RW from command-line in Ubuntu:

you only need to install ‘wodim’ package:
sudo apt-get install wodim
Then run:
wodim -scanbus
To search for the cdrw device in case if you don’t already know.

To erase the entire disk, run:
wodim dev=/dev/cdrom blank=fast

That’s all!

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Microsoft Windows XP on vanilla AMD decTOP (Geode) – wished Linux GUI is this light

This is a continuation from my post of running Android on my AMD decTOP machine.

Of all Linux distribution that I tried, I found out that only Puppy Linux offered a usable GUI desktop environment on a plain vanilla AMD decTOP out of the box, but that is not without some effort on the installer side.

On the other hand, it is very easy to get Windows XP running on a plain vanilla AMD decTOP, without additional hardware upgrades. Here is my prove.

It seems Windows XP is more tolerant to low end desktops (or in this case, decTOP) than Linux operating system for fully GUI environment. Are we getting bloated?

AMD decTOP specs
RAM: 128MB RAM DDR2
HDD: 10GB IDE
Processor: AMD Geode GX 500, 366 MHz clock rate