Posted by: Gibson Aspool June 19, 2016 © mineZcash.com
Welcome to part 2 of the 3 part Zcash mining guide.
If your reading this I’m going to assume that you have successfully followed the Part 1 of the Zcash mining Guide and you have successfully installed Linux Ubuntu on your machine either in a VM or as a dual boot. And as with Part 1 of this series I am going to assume you have never worked with Linux before and will try to make it as simple to understand as possible
Ubuntu (and other versions of Linux) are powerful and very secure operating systems that have many websites and books dedicated to learning them from the inside out, but for the purposes of this tutorial I am only going to focus on the essentials you need to run and mine Zcash. You can find many more in-depth tutorials about Ubuntu HERE and of course via Google.
When you boot your freshly installed Ubuntu the first thing you will see is your desktop:
The first thing you will notice that your main Taskbar (known as the Launcher) is located on the left side of the screen with several programs and links already pinned to it. The top icon
is your Ubuntu Search icon and allows you to find programs easily much like the search tool in Windows. Below that is your Files Icon which you can use to see your folders and files. The desktop for Ubuntu can be customized many ways including many different types of dektops but we are going to keep it simple. The first thing I like to do is de-clutter that Launcher bar. Let’s do this now by Right-Clicking on icons that we’re not going to use and select -> Unlock from Launcher. This will not delete the programs; just remove the shortcuts to simplify what we see. Go ahead and Unlock/remove all extra icons except: Search, Files, Firefox, Software and Settings; we won’t be using the rest for Zcash mining. .
Next we are going click that top Ubuntu icon and type in the word “terminal” to find the terminal program, click its icon to start and you will see this:
When a program is open like this you will notice that it shows up on the Launcher, now Right-Click on that terminal icon and lock it to the Launcher.
This is your Terminal window and the Terminal is the most important tool you will be using with Zcash so it’s good to keep it handy. A word of warning: The Terminal is very powerful and unforgiving tool in Linux, it has the power to completely break your entire OS if used incorrectly, so don’t just go entering commands into the terminal unless you are confident you know what they do. The Terminal is also very sensitive to syntax, a single missing period or mis-placed /slash will cause it to fail at running a command and it won’t tell you why. I can’t tell you how many times I have been stuck trying to get something to work only to find I was missing a single character or had a mis-spelled word. Always double check your text before hitting the Enter key.
You should also note that by default the User (you) do not have Administrator (AKA: Root or Superuser) rights in Ubuntu. This is to prevent people from always entering commands as a superuser and accidentally messing up their system. Instead it is safer to run commands with root/superuser privileges by using the word “sudo” just before the command you want to run rather than creating a separate superuser account.
Now we need to do some quick OS housekeeping before we download and begin running Zcash commands.
In the Terminal enter sudo apt-get upgrade this may take a little time and will upgrade your system with the latest Ubuntu. Next enter to update any software.
Now if you open Firefox and head over to the Zcash Sprout 1.0 Guide you will notice there are many code snippets that you will want to copy/paste into the Terminal to save time but the copy/paste function in Linux is a little different. In Windows the keyboard shortcuts for copy/paste are CTRL+C and CTRL+V (or in OSX its CMD). In Linux you can still use the CTRL+C/V to copy and paste in word programs, Firefox, etc… but this does not work when we are working in the Terminal. The CTRL+C command means CANCEL inside the Terminal and will stop any commands that you are running! Be careful! To copy/paste in-to or out-of the Terminal you must use CTRL+SHIFT+C to copy and CTRL+SHIFT+V to paste. This will make life much easier for you when following online guides like this one and grabbing codes to input into the Terminal.
Another great shortcut I learned while working in the Terminal is to use the UP & DOWN Arrow keys on your keyboard. This will cycle through previous commands you have entered and save you from having to type the same commands over and over.
Well that’s it for now, head on over to part 3 of the how to mine Zcash tutorial and I will walk you step-by-step through the Sprout 1.0 Guide so you can start Mining!
Questions or Comments? Please email me: mineZcash@gmail.com
