# A year in the life of a Skyminer
It was late 2017, when bitcoin had first grown past 4k and was on the slippery slope upwards to the great heights it had reached. I had in past years talked my good friend friend into buying an ASIC bitcoin miner, and while he had done decently well with it, he had long since sold it, to a friend who was not a technical person or computer literate at all.
On the occasion that I was asked to recover this friend of a friend’s wallet from a broken computer (and succeeded) the three of us were feeling quite hopeful about the future growth of crypto and this friend was impressed with my recovering his funds, and he began asking me for advice about investing. I began looking avidly into crypto markets and the different coins out there.
Skycoin was very early on one of the coins that jumped out at me. I was able to convince my friends that we should buy a Skyminer, and so it began.
A journey with Linux
Around the same time, I was endeavoring to find a better Linux distro; specifically one with more different types of cryptocurrency wallets supported. I happened upon Antergos, an Arch Linux-based distro. The Arch User Repos was the best selection of various cryptocurrency wallets I have thusfar seen. The package management system, overall, was unlike anything I had seen before in other linux distros.
Yet, as I attempted to install various wallets I would end up breaking my system, more often than not. Specifically the Cardano wallet; Daedalus, is a monstrosity and at the time there was not support on linux.
Crypto winter, but still sky mining.
As time went on, I lost all respect for and interest in other crypto projects, and gained in my infatuation with the skycoin’s platform. Skycoin’s model, it’s ecosystem, is a gem; nothing comes close to it. Nothing else is even worth your time looking at in my opinion. Most of the other stuff out there is actually a scam!
Adventures in software packaging
Many DIY skyminer builds later, just one thing was missing for me: the ability to easily install skywire via the package manager. I endeavored to change that, in the hope that it might help to increase adoption, but mainly to make it easier to deploy skywire on a set of nodes, like the skyminer.
The PKGBUILD script on Arch Linux is a bash-scripted process for fetching the sources, handling dependencies, building software, and putting the necessary source files and built binary files in the package in a way which represents where the software will be installed in the system. There were examples in the AUR of packages with golang dependency that I was (eventually) able to figure out some of the more nebulous aspects.
I endeavored to make each PKGBUILD compatible with any conceivable architecture. If you can get archlinuxARM running on any board, chances are you’ll be able to install skywire with ease. After that, Making archlinuxARM images for the orange pi prime was not so difficult after some initial tricks were pointed out to me by the immensely helpful folks @skywire on telegram
If you want to check it out, here’s a link to skyalarm image for orange pi prime
Skywire, The Arch way
Archlinux defines a few core principles in it’s wiki; as exemplified by the operating system. These are: simplicity, modernity, pragmatism, user-centrality, and versatility. Guided by these principles, I was able to develop something to suit my own needs and to learn a lot in the process.
As of the current date I have created PKGBUILDs for a dozen Skycoin github repos and added these to the Archlinux User Repos. With each created package came the opportunity, or excuse, to conveniently use the installed software whenever I want without first being distracted by the need to compile from source manually.
Experimenting in CX Labs
One of the challenges of packaging is making certain all the functions are working after the package is installed. This was a challenge for packaging CX, as the runtime dependencies for setting up your own blockchain are not immediately apparent or well documented. Expanded discussion of this topic may comprise another article.
It became obvious that the current state of the CX language wasn’t going to support fiber chain generation when packaged (more generally when it’s not run where it’s built). This is something I am still working with the developers to resolve.
After I figured out how it was supposed to work, i had the opportunity to discover the basics of blockchain programming, which will comprise another article at a later time. The surprisingly simple ~10 step process of creating your own cx chain is detailed in the cx chains tutorial
Social context
During this time, I realized something about this the friend-of-a-friend who’s wallet I had recovered had no intention of becoming computer literate and was wanting me to do everything for him, which I had no time to do.
They were only ever concerned about getting rich. My other friend and myself found him a bit tiresome, so we bought them out of their share of the skyminer.
Between my friend and myself, I had 100% of the knowledge of the skyminer and I was doing all of the configuration and running the thing, and since all coin prices were low and he couldn’t find work, he had other things to worry about.
So it was decided that I should have the skyminer. My friend was kind enough, though, to help rack mount the skyminer and add a fan to it so that it would fit in next to the other computers
The main difference in myself and my friend is age. This is noticeable in his wisdom but also at times in a rigidity of thought that may come with age. Perhaps it’s just a counterweight to my, at times, naive youthful optimism.
The opportunities you encounter will be of your own making. If you don’t have the key you can’t open the door. Knowledge is the key here. There will undoubtedly be more opportunity than can be taken advantage of for those with salient knowledge.
A year later, I might ask myself who is getting rich at this point with a skyminer? If my past observation of a bitcoin miner teaches me anything, it’s that the coins will be worth a lot more later.
Since the beginning of this process I struggled to find anyone else who knew as much about computers in a general sense as I did that I could ask questions of; however, in the many skycoin telegram channels I was given the direction and assistance I needed to do what I was trying to do more often than not.
I’ve been challenged to learn and grow by skycoin in a way no educational institution or other endeavor has ever challenged me, and I’m enticed by the prospect of building cx applications and to see what the future holds for this project.
