This is a how-to for staging a desktop computer for mining with cgminer, starting with a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I collected the notes while installing Ubuntu and cgminer on brand new hardware. This document should be complete enough to get you started mining Bitcoins using a graphics card. Keep in mind, mining is evolving. GPU mining is at the lower end nowdays. See Bitcoin ASIC.

Hardware

Staging was done on the following hardware:

References:

Most of these instructions are not original to me. My post serves to give me a list of steps that I can reproduce easily on current hardware and driver versions. Here are the web pages I referenced to put this blog post together:

STEP 1: Install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

Download and install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS from Ubuntu.com. As a side note, I previously tried installing Ubuntu 12.10, but I had to install propriety graphics card drivers manually. This worked, but those steps are not described in this how-to. On the other hand, 12.04 LTS detected and suggested propriety drivers automatically.

I recommend installing from a USB key. To create one easily, you can use unetbootin. This app can be downloaded and installed to Windows, Linux or Mac from unetbootin.sourceforge.net. All I had to do was prepare my USB key using unetbootin and then boot/install the new machine from that USB key. No need for a DVD drive.

During the Ubuntu install, make sure to select the box for installing third party drivers when prompted to do so.

STEP 2: Install proprietary drivers for your graphics card

Source: rdmsnippets.com