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Ok. I don't care if I make only a small amount of bitcoins mining. I want to mine.

How do I setup my machine (amd x64 4.6Ghz 6GB/RAM with GeForce Nvidia 7300, LinuxMint 10) to start mining?

Is it damn simple, or it's a damn-high-geek-setup?

Can I set up to use both CPU and GPU?

How much should I expect in this simple system per month with my machine on all time?

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    I cleaned up your question a bit. I advise you remove the last mini-question about how much can you expect, because it's already been answered - bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/118/…
    – ripper234
    Commented Oct 8, 2011 at 22:52
  • Also, I think you should specify Windows or Linux. Or perhaps answerers will provide a generic answer.
    – ripper234
    Commented Oct 8, 2011 at 22:53
  • @ripper234 - Ok, thanks for the edit and the answer. I'll mantain the last part of the question, maybe someone have a similar system, just that. If you read in my question "...LinuxMint 10..." is specified. Anyway, truly thank you. =)
    – H_7
    Commented Oct 9, 2011 at 14:39
  • Also, check out LiteCoin - to be released on Wednesday/Thursday. It's a "CPU friendly" bitcoin fork that looks relatively promising. bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47417.msg564414
    – ripper234
    Commented Oct 9, 2011 at 14:45
  • It's utterly and completely pointless. The effort alone of writing this post, let alone reading the answers and setting up a miner, won't even remotely be repaid by the ridiculously tiny amount of coins you'll generate.
    – o0'.
    Commented Oct 10, 2011 at 13:26

3 Answers 3

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Please check this question first:
How much Bitcoin will I mine right now with hardware X?

Before you go through all this work, it is important to know what to expect from your hardware.

There are two options: solo mining or pool mining. Unless you have a lot of computing power (several ASICs), you should probably mine at a pool.

So the first thing to do is to sign up at a bitcoin pool. The stickies in this bitcointalk section have links for the top 10 pools. The main differences between them are the payout models and the fees. If you just want to try things out, choose one of the most popular pools like Deepbit or BTC Guild. You can then try others, according to your needs.

Now you need to install a miner. It has a simple interface, a drop down menu with a list of pre-configured pools and it is not difficult to setup.

After you install the miner, you need to point it towards your pool. So select device you want to mine with (probably your FPGA/ASIC), enter the pool URL (if you don't know what it is, check the FAQ/help section of your pool's website) and your username/password.

That's it. You can now see your progress at the pool's website.

Useful links:

In your specific case, you have no ASICs or FPGAs, so you will earn less than a penny of Bitcoin.

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    Please note that despite all the upvotes, this answer is severely outdated. There is zero chance that you will profit from mining on a CPU or GPU now
    – RentFree
    Commented Aug 4, 2015 at 15:47
  • @RentFree Can you make an answer to reflect the current situation, please?
    – Léo Léopold Hertz 준영
    Commented Jan 11, 2018 at 15:44
  • @RentFree True for BTC. Not always true for some of the many altcoins out there that you can quickly exchange for BTC then cash. Since the principle is the same for most altcoins, I'd say this answer is plenty updated.
    – user4276
    Commented Jan 23, 2018 at 4:27
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+100

There are several options for Mining Bitcoins some of these are no longer profitable, but for the sake of being thorough here they are in order of efficiency lowest to highest:

Methods

Currently the most efficient method is to use ASIC miners as with the difficulty always increasing, it becomes harder and harder to gain returns on lower spec hardware.

Some Example Hardware Setups

Most ASICS work out the box and have built in web interfaces to control and monitor the hashing of the device, where as other forms of mining normally require a bit getting down and dirty in the command line. Also as its mostly ineffective to mine in any other way this is generally the way most people choose to go although there is normally a high barrier to entry due to the high cost of entry e.g. the new Cointerra TerraMiner can achieve 2TH/s and is priced at USD $5,999 making it an expensive device to purchase.

Monitoring

When mining you want to ensure maximum possible up time as whenever you have hardware not hashing you are loosing money, So its pretty important to setup some kind of monitoring for your devices. Some mining software comes with this built in however there are also some other options out there.

Pools / Stratum Proxy

The Final piece in the puzzle is the pool, now obviously you can choose one of the many pools already out there or you can run your own pool. Running your own pool can be a daunting task for beginners, but it is well worthwhile with the knowledge you learn while building and maintaining it.

Build Your Own Pool:

Some of My Favorite Pools

  • https://www.multipool.us/ - Automatically Mines the most profitable SHA-256 and or scrypt coin.

  • https://ghash.io/ - This is the mining pool backend for cex.io and they offer merged mining with Namecoin, Devcoin, Ixcoin

  • https://hashco.ws/ - Like multipool but offer ability to recieve all payout in BTC

I Hope this very brief overview of mining helps you get started :)

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    Might be worth to add that mining Bitcoin specifically is rarely profitable as the Bitcoin mining market is very close to a perfect competition one, so profits tend to fall rapidly to almost the equilibrium point. Unless you can get a 2nd hand ASIC really cheap or electricity for free, most probably it won't be worth it. What's usually more profitable, as of now, is mining alt-coins and exchanging them for bitcoins...
    – Joe Pineda
    Commented Mar 2, 2014 at 14:46
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If you are after bitcoins I wouldn't even spend time on CPU or GPU. It is now difficult with specialized hardware (butterfly labs, kncminer ... ). You can have a look at cloud mining (cexio) as well it is expensive and you have to have bitcoins already but you can buy and sell GH/s and you can actually make more from trading than mining.

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  • Are you using CEXIO ? Any experience to share with us? Thanks.
    – devasia2112
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 2:07
  • 1
    Yes I'm using it, I started in december more or less. So far I had no issues. Mining is great, you need to be careful and buy at the right price. The price of ghs is changing all the time. People actually tend to earn more on trading than mining. I had just one issue with accessing the website from a mobile phone. But I found this app that solved the issue: goo.gl/OXa4sD
    – Luigi Agosti
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 11:43
  • Thannks @Luigi for the tips, I will dig a little bit more into CEXIO.
    – devasia2112
    Commented Feb 14, 2014 at 15:56

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