Notes on Gridcoin Mining Using Google Cloud Computing

Gridcoin (GRC) is an altcoin that can be mined through contribution to scientific research (PoR - Proof of Research), more specifically, by doing BOINC (Berkley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) hosted computing work. It makes cryptocurrency mining a more meaningful thing and is very suitable for mining use a VPS such as Google cloud. Different from other cryptocoin mining, you don't need to worry about the violation of TOS as you're running the BOINC computing software instead a miner on the VPS.

The following steps will guide you to mine Gridcoin on Google cloud, which is based on but much simpler than the official tutorial - http://www.gridresearchcorp.com/gridcoin/?tutorial.

1. First follow the official guide to setup both BIONC and Gridcoin wallet on your own (local) computer. Make sure you use BAM! account manager in the tutorial.

2. Sign up for the Google cloud free trial: https://cloud.google.com/free-trial/

3. Follow the official Steps 2-6 to create your google cloud instance.

4. The official tutorial doesn't use an account manage, to simplify the process, I strongly suggest you to use BAM!, so you can skip the official Steps 7 and 8.

5. For official Step 9 - in the SSH terminal enter the following commands, each "$" indicates a single line (if you're using BAM!):

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install boinc
for each project that you want to run, enter:
$ boinccmd --project_attach PROJECT_URL AUTH_KEY
replacing PROJECT_URL and AUTH_KEY with the values that you gathered in step#8
$ boinccmd --join_acct_mgr http://bam.boincstats.com BAM_ID BAM_Pass
(replacing BAM_ID and BAM_Pass with your BAM! ID and password.)
$ boinccmd --set_run_mode always
$ boinccmd --set_network_mode always

The following commands are useful for monitoring the state of BOINC:

$ boinccmd --get_simple_gui_info
$ boinccmd --get_tasks
$ boinccmd --get_file_transfers

6. Follow the official Steps 10~14.

Other Notes:

1. If you want to change the BIONC projects for Google cloud to run, just manage the projects for Google cloud instance using BAM!, and re-input the command to update the BIONC projects and syncs with BAM!:

$ boinccmd --join_acct_mgr http://bam.boincstats.com BAM_ID BAM_Pass

2. On your personal PC, where your Gridcoin wallet is installed, you should add all the BIONC projects you joined, although you can suspend them locally and only run them on Google cloud for BIONC credits.

References:
http://www.gridresearchcorp.com/gridcoin/?tutorial
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Boinccmd_tool
https://gridcoinstats.eu/faucet.php

How to Mine Bytecoin, Monero and Fantomcoin Using Google Cloud Computing Free Trial

Google cloud offers everyone $300 credit for free to spend over the first 60 days on signing up. You'll need a valid credit card for registration but won't be billed during the trail. The following steps will guide you to mine Bytecoin, Monero and Fantomcoin on Google cloud:

1. First register for a MinerGate account using your email.



2. Sign up for the Google cloud free trial: https://cloud.google.com/free-trial/

3. In Google cloud console - https://console.developers.google.com/project, create a new project, and give it a name. You may check the tutorial https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/linux-quickstart (a video tutorial included) before you go on.

4. Go to your project dashboard - something like "https://console.developers.google.com/compute/instances?project=projectid-web-111612&graph=GCE_CPU&duration=PT1H", add a VM instance by click "NEW INSTANCE" button. Change the "Machine type" to "High CPU machines (n1-highcpu-2, 2 vCPUs, 1.8 GB Memory)", and change "Boot disk" to "Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (amd64 trusty image built on 2015-09-09)". For the "Firewall", tick both "Allow HTTP traffic" and "Allow HTTPS traffic". Then click "Create".

5. Find you created instance, click "ssh", "Open in Browser Window".

6. Now, in the console, input (you can ctrl+c and then ctrl+v into the web terminal) the following three command lines (one line + enter key, each time):

wget https://minergate.com/download/deb-cli
sudo dpkg -i deb-cli
nohup minergate-cli -user youremail -bcn 2 -fcn+xmr 2

where you should replace "youremail" with your MinerGate account email.

7. Now you can close the ssh browser window. Check your instance's CPU usage, which should be about 100%.

8. You can repeat the above steps to get more instances (You can also create a "Snapshots" of your VM instance just created and duplicated it to get more instances).

9. Now you can just let your project running for the whole trial period. Don't need to worry about your credit card being charged as according to google's FAQ, your projects will be paused automatically when your trial credits run out and you won't be charged unless you upgrade your trial account to paid account.

Warning: This tutorial is for demonstration purpose only. Use google cloud for cryptocurrency mining only may be a violation of its TOS and may result in your google cloud account being suspended (Although this has not been confirmed as their terms of service is vague about this). Try at your own risk! If you're worrying about that, you can safely delete your newly created computing project now.

FAQs:

Why Bytecoin and Monero?
As is known to all, nowadays it is not profitable anymore to CPU mine most cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin or Litcoin. This page (http://cpucoinlist.com/) listed some altcoins that are still suitable for CPU mining, in which Bytecoin and Monero are the most popular two according to the cryptocurrency rank: https://www.coingecko.com/en.

References:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855564.0
http://askubuntu.com/questions/106351/running-programs-in-the-background-from-terminal
http://cryptorials.io/mine-cryptocurrency-normal-computer/

PPSSPP - A Free & Open Source PSP Emulator

The best free & open source PSP emulator PPSSPP just got the 1.0 release! PPSSPP can run your PSP games on your PC, Mac, and even Android and iOS device (and also many other platforms by unofficial ports, such as Linux, Blackberry and Symbian)! It supports most commercial PSP games at a decent frame rate, and what's more, as the unique emulator features, you can play in full HD resolution and save & restore game state anywhere, anytime!

Official Site: http://ppsspp.org/index.html
Download: http://ppsspp.org/downloads.html
Commercial Games - Compatibility and Results:
http://forums.ppsspp.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=5

Fistful of Frags - Free 3D Western FPS Game

Fistful of Frags is a wild west themed multi-player first person shooter based on Source engine. The game has many game modes, advanced multiplayer bots for off-line practice and is free to play on PC/Mac/Linux. 

Install via Steam: steam://run/265630
Installer at ModDB: http://www.moddb.com/mods/fistful-of-frags/downloads/client-installer-39-full

Links:
http://www.fistful-of-frags.com/index.php

Javascript PC Emulator - Linux in JavaScript

A very cool project by Fabrice Bellard, a Javascript PC emulator, which can even boot Linux. See Linux in JavaScript within your browser:
http://bellard.org/jslinux/

The Linux in the demo even contains a C compiler, an Emacs Clone and a small MS-DOS .COM launcher.

Complete Linux Installer - Install Linux on Your Android Phones

With "Complete Linux Installer", you can install Linux operating systems such as Ubuntu, Debian, Backtrack, ArchLinux, openSUSE and Fedora on your Android phone or tablet. The installed Linux distribution will be almost fully functional as a standalone App of your phone - so it won't affect your phone's build-in system. With this Linux "App", you can download and use lots of Linux programmes such as FireFox, GIMP, Emacs, LyX, Octave and R with your phone.

The App is free and can be downloaded at: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zpwebsites.linuxonandroid

Tutorial/Notes on how to use the App: http://bruce-lab.blogspot.com/2013/09/linux-on-android-installation-notes.html

Official site of the App: http://www.linuxonandroid.org/