How to mine Monero RandomX on openSUSE Linux

Money, Technology

Monero is a cryptocurrency that relies on proof-of-work mining to achieve distributed consensus, so you can help the network and also earn money just using your PC to mine it. You can build a dedicated rig with powerful GPUs, but (at this time) with the new algo RandomX a modern CPU is enough to mine Monero.

The Monero Project does not endorse any particular pool, software, or hardware, so here we want to explain to you a fast and simple way to mine Monero on your PC with openSUSE Linux onboard.

You have different options to mine Monero with your PC, but we consider only the best ones to also help the Monero network, so we can have a reliable, trusted and secure coin to use.

In our opinion, it is your choice to choose the best way between SOLO mining and POOL mining.

Monero SOLO mining on your PC

Going solo with Monero mining may be the best option to make the experience about Monero because you can do it on your PC just using the official Monero Wallet. All of the profits remain with you, and you don’t have the responsibility for handling mining operations by yourself and performing maintenance of the associated hardware.

No pool to choose and a simple GUI app to use. Also, a CLI application is available, if you’re a terminal GURU this is the right for you. The GUI wallet provides a nice user interface, adaptable to all kinds of users, but it is especially recommended for less technical people who want to quickly send and receive XMR coins. The CLI wallet gives you total control over your Monero node and funds. Highly customizable and includes various analysis tools, as well as an HTTP RPC and 0MQ interface.

On the GUI app, after generating a seed and address, you’ll need to click on the Advanced tab, then on Mining. From here, you can change the number of CPU threads (cores) to mine with, as well as the option to enable background mining. The more cores you enable, the more hashrate you will get, but the performance of your PC could be degrading for the other operations. In the end, press the Start Mining button.

With the CLI application, if you want to mine, you can do so from the wallet:

start_mining 2

This will start mining on the daemon using two threads.

Alternatively, to stop mining:

stop_mining

Note that this is solo mining, and may take a while before you find a block, but you’ll help a lot the Monero network and its strength. So, good luck!

Here the reference to download the right software:

Monero POOL mining on your PC

To do POOL mining on your PC (or rig), you need a mining software and a POOL to work with. There is a lot of software to do POOL mining on Monero, you can google it and find a long list. In our opinion, the best software mining applications to use are:

Also, as we said, you need a POOL to mine with. This option requires you to utilize your computing resources as part of a group of miners and, while you are required to pay a fee to the pool and share your gains, this system will allow you a faster process of blocks’ validation, so usually, your income will be bigger than SOLO mining. To find the best Monero Pools, you can check this link:

Ok, now we can do POOL mining, so let’s go!

In this tutorial, we considered using an openSUSE Linux PC with the XMR-Stak miner, a universal open-source stratum pool miner. This miner supports CPUs, AMD, and NVIDIA GPUs and can be used for mining various cryptocurrencies: Ryo, Graft, Bittube, Conceal, Haven and many more Cryptonight coins.

Now, XMR-Stak is completely free and available in pre-compiled binaries, so we can use it. In this case, please use the Developer PGP Key’s to verify the integrity of the precompiled binaries. Alternatively, you can compile on your own the sources, in that case, you can follow these instructions: Compile xmr-stak for Linux. If you want to compile on openSUSE, you’ll need compilers and libraries:

Get the latest release of XMR-Stak binaries here: https://github.com/fireice-uk/xmr-stak/releases.

If you planned to use also AMD GPUs for mining, you’ll need the AMDGPU-PRO next generation closed source graphics component. You can find all the information and all the instructions on the official openSUSE documentation: SDB:AMDGPU-PRO.

Another step is to configure HugePages for openSUSE Linux. Open a terminal window:

$ sudo vim /etc/sysctl.conf

And add the following line:

vm.nr_hugepages=256

Then:

$ sudo vim /etc/security/limits.conf

And add the following lines:

* - memlock 262144
root - memlock 262144

Check HugePages_Total, Hugepagesize, and Hugetlb with:

$ grep Huge /proc/meminfo

If you see values different from zero, you’re onboard. If you need a deeper comprehension of this, you can check the Configuring HugePages for Oracle on Linux (x86-64) Oracle Base article.

Extract the XMR-Stak binaries where you want and open a terminal in that location. Launch it:

$ ./xmr-stak-rx

At the first launch, you’ll need to provide some data to the default auto-config program, so prepare:

Pool-address and port | pool.supportxmr.com:3333

Wallet-address | 832jsFbpd6Wddfg66QPMxfZWQceNR5f8bDhcMsCU45yhfKVH9P4X8KF3jaKs68bZJMLrGjcrghpcoNPyRm79GQYa6g2eGAY

Pool-password | x

Currency to mine | randomx

These are our fake values, you’ll need to provide your own values, so check your Monero Wallet and the pool pf your choice for them.

After that, the program will auto set up your hardware (CPU and GPUs) and will start to mine Monero.

Additional resources: