Choosing an operating system is one of the necessary steps in mining. Depending on your skill level, you may find Windows or ethOS the easiest to just set up and go.
Windows
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Licensing | $119 per miner (though if you don’t activate it, it’s free) |
| Ease of Use | Easy / Moderate (Drivers for BIOS modding) |
| Supported Cards | AMD, Nvidia |
| Monitoring | Third Party |
Windows is likely what most beginners are familiar with. The most third part support exists for Windows, especially when it involves overclocking or BIOS modding. For the most part, the only command-driven setup will be the initial setup of whatever mining application is used.
Driver install can be tricky once modded BIOS images come into the mix. AMD drivers need to be merged and signed in order for Windows to utilize the cards. Additionally, the system starts to become complicated to configure once a large number of cards come into the mix and require 64-bit memory space to be mapped to the PCI slots.
Linux
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Licensing | Free |
| Ease of Use | Moderate (GUI) / Advance (CLI) |
| Supported Cards | AMD, Nvidia |
| Monitoring | Third Party |
I rate Linux a dual-difficulty depending on how you decided to run. If CLI-only, such as Ubuntu Server, the novice may have difficulty. If GUI-driven, such as Ubuntu Desktop, the user may find it easier to navigate without commands. Regardless, mining is mining. AMD using OpenCL is easy to set up and use with a few commands. Nvidia cards are a bit more complicated, as a proprietary driver must be used. Users report increased hashrates on Ubuntu over Windows using the same card.
ethOS
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Licensing | $39 per miner |
| Ease of Use | Easy |
| Supported Cards | AMD |
| Monitoring | Built-in |
Have an AMD card? Welcome to the absolutely easiest way to begin mining. Simply write the ethOS image to a flash drive or SSD and change the included configuration script. No drivers to worry about, easy five minutes to set up, and monitoring baked into the platform from the start. Nvidia users have un-official support and may be better using regular ol’ Linux if they prefer not to use Windows.