hey everyone and welcome back to another mining chamber video in this video i will talk about
the different operating systems that you can consider for mining and i will also compare
them and tell you my own opinion later on in the video now let's get into it right after the intro
one of the most common questions or troubles i find is when people finish building their
mining rig and then they don't know what to do next even if you have built a couple of mining
rigs and you're running them you might still be wondering if there's a better option out there
for your operating system but before we dig into that let's first explain how this operating system
fiasca works for all the beginners out there this will be a brief explanation so bear with
me please your mining rig is essentially a pc just like i explained in the buying strategy video so
your pc in this case your mining rig needs an operating system to run beyond the bios screen
the operating system is installed on your storage device whether you're using a usb key or an ssd
or an hdd now there are limitations for using a usb and we will talk about that later on you
can only have one operating system flash on your storage device but if you know what you're doing
you can do dual booting which means flashing two different operating systems on your storage device
but for the sake of this video we'll just keep it basic now i won't show you exactly how to flash an
operating system on your storage device because i do cover it in any operating system guide that
i do for example the windows guide i show how to flash windows on your usb stick and then the hive
os guide that i have out there i also show it in there so just to avoid being redundant i'm
not going to go over it here but now hopefully understand the very basics of just an operating
system and a storage device although one thing i want to mention is not to confuse mining software
to operating system so for example phoenix miner trx miner team redminer and all these different
cli mining applications they're just mining software so you can run these on different
operating systems as well whether you're using windows or a linux based mining operating system
and then there's also miners for example cryptex or nicehash and these just use those cli miners
that i mentioned so they're not their own miners but they just use fenix miner or whatever one you
choose in their software and then they just take a percentage from you for simplifying the process
so just make sure that you know the difference between a mining software and an operating system
i will also be making a video talking about different mining software so for now just make
sure that you understand that operating systems and mining software are completely different
now let's talk about operating systems finding the right operating system for you depends on your
condition so if you have multiple mining rigs you might need a linux based mining operating system
so it's easier for you to manage them and if you have just a couple of rigs then running them on
windows can be fine for you so the list that i will be covering is first we have windows and then
after windows we have linux based mining operating systems so that will include hive os rave os and
all these different linux based mining operating systems there are plenty of them out there and
then we're also going to talk about a standalone ubuntu that you can just run by yourself without
having a third party in between so firstly windows as far as i know windows is the first place that
people started mining and it's the og for miners a lot of miners still use it and it's very common
amongst beginners but oddly enough it's actually not simple mining on windows even though the
majority of us are very familiar with it and it's not that windows is just hard to use it's more
like it's very fragile it can crash way more often and it needs special care comparing to a linux
based mining operating system but i also feel like every new miner has to try mining in windows 10.
it's like a way to connect with the tradition of a home gpu miner we all have to go through breaking
a keyboard or two because of blue screen no but seriously windows definitely can be a nightmare
especially if you're trying to set up amd and video at the same time now when would i recommend
windows to someone if you are new to mining and you just want to stay on windows especially if
you're planning to use this mining ring or pc as well for personal use then yes windows is a good
choice because you can mine as well as surf the web or do whatever you want on the pc or rig so
if you're mining on your main pc then definitely don't delete your windows and install a mining
operating system because you're not going to be able to use your system for other than mining
unless of course you run the mining operating system off of a usb or a different ssd but on
the bright side windows is free so just keep in mind you don't have to buy any license to mine on
windows i do show how to do that in a guide that i posted a long time ago which is how to mine on
windows 10 and i will leave the link for that in the descriptions below it's a bit outdated but you
still can follow the steps without any issues and it will work completely fine for you although i am
planning on doing another version of this guide that is more up to date and it will contain more
information for you so in a nutshell windows for mining is not so bad i mean it is a love and hate
relationship especially with all these updates that come out every other day and they restart
out of nowhere and turn off your miner with it which is very annoying but then at the same time
we all started with windows and i feel like it's just something nice to get your feet wet in mining
so now that wraps it up for windows let's go ahead and talk about the linux based mining operating
systems there are many different operating systems out there that are made specifically for mining
and the benefits of using them is that they're easier to manage especially if you have a big farm
because your rigs are all basically running and connected to your account where you can usually
sign into your web application and then modify all the rigs from there that makes it a lot easier
than having to go to each rig individually and then modify it if anything happens to it and it's
also very easy to get started with them as well most people get intimidated and they think it's
linux and it's going to be hard to understand and all that stuff but honestly it does not take any
knowledge of linux in some scenarios you need to know how to run a command in the terminal
and all that stuff but that's just basic stuff that you need to know in general when it comes
to mining so one thing for sure we can give for the mining operating systems are the convenience
now in most scenarios they do come for a cost and the cost is not that much but it's still something
that's out of your pocket and other than the cost there's also the worry of transparency so some of
the operating systems are open source while others are not and if the platform is open source it will
give it more credibility and trust and the reason being is that when it's open source everyone can
look at the code and if there's anything sketchy people will notice it now i'm not saying any of
the private platforms have bad intentions or anything like that but it's just something in
general that it gives more trust to the project just to give you guys an idea of how this works
so basically you get this operating system flashed on a usb stick or an ssd you plug it into your rig
you make sure you have internet or wi-fi connected and then you boot your rig and after that you most
likely will see your rig pop up in your online account now if your rig doesn't pop up that means
you run into an issue probably something that has to do with your mining rig's bios or some part is
not connected properly and if you guys do have any questions on your mining rig motherboards bios i
did release a video recently about that topic so feel free to check it out the link will be in the
descriptions below so once your rig pops up in your account you get to apply your flight sheet
or whatever terminology they use for your miner and then you can apply your overclocks and run
your miner and everything you want to do to it you can do it online shutting it down rebooting
updating and all that good stuff so getting started on these mining specific operating systems
is super easy so since there's a lot of these mining specific operating systems we're not going
to browse through all of them and compare all of them i personally have only used hive os so
i'm in no position to tell you which one is better until i get to test them out but i don't recommend
overthinking it either pick one and try it if you liked it and it was convenient for you then they
did their job right you can always test out all of them and decide which one you like after that
their pricing structures are very similar they almost all have a free rig option so
you can test it for free now one thing that's scary about a mining specific operating system
let's say somebody gets access to your account and you didn't secure it properly then that means
somebody can just direct all your mining rigs to their wallet rather than just this one rig that
they catch in windows or anything like that now this is very unlikely but just make sure that you
take your security seriously to avoid any issues like that so as a wrap up for the mining specific
operating systems they're super convenient they're easy to get started with but they do cost
some money now the final option is just running ubuntu which is also linux based now ubuntu will
come naked so you won't have any applications for mining or anything like that and it will
be similar to windows so if you install it you have to download the miner applications and the
overclocking and all that stuff on the rig itself so you won't have a web application that you can
access and all that fancy stuff and now why would you want to run it on ubuntu and that is because
it will be more stable than running it on windows you're avoiding the headache of auto updates and
all that stuff from windows but the cost is that it does need a learning curve to get set up with
it because all the overclocking and everything like that won't have a specific software for it
at least as far as i know and then you just want to install your mining softwares and run them that
way now the bright side of using ubuntu is that you have the flexibility to create your own tools
and that is if you're interested in that side of things i have been planning on making a
video for setting up in ubuntu but i have been procrastinating that idea for very long because
it does take some time but eventually i will have it out now that wraps up all three options
so first you have your windows and then you have the linux based mining operating systems and then
you have just raw ubintu so by now i'm sure you figured out what i'm using i currently have five
different mining rigs and four of those rigs are on hiveos for the reasons i've mentioned before
it's simple to use convenient and it's easier to manage multiple rigs on there now this would
work with the other mining operating systems too it's just for me so far i've only tried hive os
and i will be trying other ones very soon and then i have one last rig which is on windows
even though i've complained about them a lot i still have one rig running on there and that rig
is my radeon sevens and i only have to look at it once a month if it ever crashes it's super stable
it's been running without any issues and that's why i'm not moving it from windows at all now
originally i've had all my mining rigs on windows but then i've slowly moved them over to hive os
i will also eventually be putting rigs on different mining operating systems just so
i can try them out now my recommendation to you is first know how many gpus you're trying to run
so if you have a mining rig with six gpus or less then i would leave windows as an
option so you can feel free to use it but if you're trying to run a mining rig with
more than six gpus i would honestly recommend going for a linux based mining operating system
all the way especially if you're trying to mix amd with nvidia it will make your life a lot easier
you won't have to struggle with a lot of blue screens and everything will be much more stable
one big advantage that linux based mining operating systems have over windows is the fact
that your mining overclocks have a less chance of resetting on you and then overloading your power
supply in windows your overclock settings might crash and then it keeps mining you will be using
way more power than you should be using but with the linux based mining operating systems they boot
up with the overclocks on the gpus so you have a very low chance of overloading your power supply
now i hope this video helped you guys decide on which operating system you should be using
i know it didn't give you a straight answer but this is just the best i can give you for you to
decide on your own now if you're already using a specific operating system please let me know
in the comments below i'm curious to hear what you guys use now that is it for this
video if you guys enjoyed it please make sure to hit that thumbs up and if you're
new here make sure to subscribe thank you for watching and i hope you have a wonderful day
you