MadMax Plotter on Ubuntu Virtual Machine?

Hello,

so after i read a lot of Comments and Threads about Plotting on the Ubuntu OS is about 10-15% faster than on Windows i am really thinking about to switch on to Ubuntu.

- My Question is, is the Madmax Plotter compatible on Ubuntu?
- Can i run Ubuntu as a Virtual Machine on Windows and still take profit of the better Plotting Speed?
- Can i run the Chia GUI on Windows and just run the Madmaxplotter on Ubuntu via VM on same PC?

Maybe someone can help me and have the same Idea as me.

Greetings
-XCHeisenberg :metal:

Hey there, it´s compatible with ubuntu, i´m using it. With VM i don´t know if it works or if u got the plus Speed couse it´s still on windows…

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My windows plotting times are slow around 5500 seconds.

I tried Ubuntu in windows and it was about the same speed as Windows which makes sense.

I did a bare metal install of Ubuntu and it plots in 2300. So for me it was better than a factor of 2 faster.

Machine is Dell R720 dual E5-2650 160Gb ddr 3.

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Wow man…
Sounds awesome.
Do I have to resync the Chia GUI again or can I copy the Chia folder from windows?
Do you recommend installing Ubuntu on a ssd or can I run it from a USB Stick?
Im curious if all my functions which I currently use on windows are still working. (Chia Dashboard/Chia Harvester Statistics…)

i think u need to install on ssd, i can´t use madmax with stick. U don´t need sync, just use madmax and start istant with plotting, just need pool puplic key and farmer key. But if u wanna use the chia gui on linux u can copy the chain and use it there.

I want to Plot with Ubuntu but still want to farm at the same time so I will need Chia GUI as well.
So I have to Sync Chia GUI in Ubuntu again?

U can copy the Chain & wallet from windows and use it there.

Ok nice so copy the whole folder? Not, right?

Wallet and DB should be enough, i reinstalled on windows and only copy this 2 folders and it was synced.

You can move your whole setup to Ubuntu sure, and just use the chia CLI to do everything. You don’t actually need the GUI at all. Or keep farming on windows GUI on another machine, and use the ubuntu machine as a dedicated plotter, copy the plots over the network. That’s how I’m doing it two servers running ubuntu plotting and one farming running windows. I can now do about 60 plots a day.

If you move machines, then save yourself a lot of time by shutting down chia then copying the database files for the blockchain and nodes over to the new machine.

Ok but moving the chia files from windows to Ubuntu will work just as easy as you said?

For the sync to happen faster yes, copy the files from C:\users\your username\ .chia\mainnet\db to the corresponding directory on the linux machine after installing Chia. Though I am only plotting on linux not running chia farmer, harvester , full node etc… Plotting requires none of these components.

I run everything in ubuntu containers with Proxmox. and 1 vm gui ubuntu for full node. each server has its own ubuntu mad max plotter container and a “few” harvesters all running in separate containers. I spin up madax whenever I add a disk to my cluster. still seeing 30 minute plot times from the containers. no noticeable difference from bare metal.
also run chia plots check often on all nodes…
containers let you take advantage of hardware with out the overhead of running a whole operating system. and iv yet to find something that doesn’t run in a unprivileged container…
#1 learning a hypervisor like…
proxmox
I highly highly recommend.
its like it was made for this purpose.
theres a serious learning curve
also I feel like mentioning
the documentation doesnt state exactly what filesystem to use
I recommend xfs with all the bells and wistles for ur plotting drive and storage hdds.
zfs is fine too if u want redudndancey.
I prefer jobs xfs tho NO raid…
good luck
have fun!

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what is your hardware setup?

In short
Im happy to have

  1. hp proliant dl370G6 24 cores total, 14 bays each with 1tb hdds

  2. Dell t710 24 core with X5690s.3.4. With 8 bays. Each bay with 4tb hdds

  3. r410 dell. 24 cores 5600 series processors a low energy editrion. With 4 4tb hdds inside.

All are dual processors.
Each have 1tb Samsung evos nvme.
1 and 3 have 32gb ram
2 has 120gb ram.so I use -2 plot to ram. Works great.

  • 15 5tb externals. Usb3 adapter into the t710

Between them I have running 20 ish containers and a couple vms.
And a plex server :grin:with gpu transcoding.

They use a lot of power while plotting tis true.
But they have amazing low energy capabilities when not being taxed by mad max.

Between all 3 About 7-8 tb ploting a day.

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A theoretical factor is that ext4 (linux) formatting has better performance than ntfs (windows, available in linux but not preferred.). This is in part because ntfs saves a file in a disk but putting chunks of it in the first available spaces it finds. ext4 tries to find a big enough contiguous space of available disk space to reduce the amount of chunks a single file has to be split in. Not sure how much Windows interferes in the performance of the VM but I’d just install ubuntu straight to the actual machine and do a dual boot setup. For first timers it might be a bit challenging but there’s lots of documentation, lots of step by step YouTube videos and lots of google results for every problem.

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xfs formating is the best form my testing. I use it for plotting drive and for storage… id format my ram I plot to if I could lol jpjp