Once you get Ubuntu installed, it takes a few minor configurations to get it working.
Add SSHD for remote administration and Screen for detaching the session
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
sudo apt-get install screen
Add a Personal Package Archive that some gentlemen have created for ASIC mining.
add-apt-repository ppa:unit3/bfgminer
Update Apt repositories, including the new PPA and Install.
apt-get update
apt-get install bfgminer
The following command will add it to /etc/modules so it shows up on reboot
modprobe ftdi_sio
We then created the bash file to run bfgminer and connect to our mining pool (Eclipse, in our case).
nano miner.sh and add the following:
#!/bin/bash
bfgminer -o us3.eclipsemc.com:3333 -u username_worker -p password
We saved this to /usr/bin/ so any user account can make use of it. We also had to make it executable.
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/miner.sh
After the bash file was tested as working, we had to make it start automatically on reboot and run both interactivley and non-interactively. This was accomplished using another bash script that has “screen” call /usr/bin/miner.sh.
#!/bin/bash
screen -S miner -d -m su – username /usr/bin/miner.sh
We moved this to /etc/init.d and made it executable as well.
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/start_miner.sh
To have this start with the computer we added a link to /etc/rc3.d.
ln -s /etc/init.d/start_miner /etc/rc3.d/S99start_miner
As far as I know, this should work on any Ubuntu version that supports PPAs (Personal Package Archives). Also, I heard somewhere that future versions of Ubuntu will have some or all of this built in so the only needed would be to create the startup scripts.