Mining OS Compared: Hive OS vs mmpOS vs SimpleMining OS, plus Braiins OS and LuxOS for ASICs

This page is for people who run dedicated mining hardware: a GPU rig or two in a garage, a shelf of CPU boxes or a rack of Antminers. It compares the three Linux mining operating systems still worth installing on GPU rigs in 2026, Hive OS, mmpOS and SimpleMining OS, and the two aftermarket firmwares that do a similar job for Bitcoin ASICs, Braiins OS and LuxOS. mmpOS takes the slot that used to belong to RaveOS, which shut down its services on 1 February 2026.

The short answer: Hive OS for the biggest feature set and mixed GPU and ASIC farms; mmpOS for a handful of GPUs, Intel Arc cards or Windows rigs in the same dashboard; SimpleMining OS for GPU-only rigs with a lean interface. For Antminers, Braiins OS and LuxOS both autotune and cap power; pick by your exact model and control board. None of them changes mining economics: profit depends on your power price, hardware and the coin price.

The short list

What a mining OS actually does

A mining OS is a stripped-down Linux system with GPU drivers and dozens of miners preinstalled. You write an image to a USB stick or SSD, add a config file that ties the rig to your account, boot, and manage it from a web dashboard.

• Drivers baked in. The Hive OS stable image is built on Ubuntu 22.04 with NVIDIA 580 and ROCm 6.4. mmpOS uses one image for all GPUs and switches driver versions with mmp nvidia-install or mmp amdgpu-install. SimpleMining OS keeps separate images for general use, for RTX 50 cards, and a beta without AMD support.
• Reusable templates. Hive OS has Flight Sheets (coin, wallet, pool and miner), mmpOS has miner profiles with placeholders such as %wallet_address%.%rig_name%, and SimpleMining OS has mining and overclocking groups. Switching coins on many rigs becomes one change.
• Remote control and monitoring. Clocks, power limits and fans per card, remote reboot, a browser console or SSH, and hashrate, temperature and power per GPU.

The trade-off: the rig becomes a dedicated machine, Windows-only miners will not run (mmpOS’s Windows 10 agent is the exception), and management depends on the vendor’s cloud and your internet connection. If you mine on a desktop you also use daily, a Windows app such as Kryptex or NiceHash QuickMiner fits better; see our GPU mining software comparison.

Free tiers and what they cover

• Hive OS counts workers. Two are free, with a short statistics history and limited features. The pricing page lists ASICs on Hiveon’s own firmware as free.
• mmpOS counts active GPUs per day through credits; the free allowance covers up to 8 GPUs. If credits run out you get a 24-hour notice, then mining pauses.
• SimpleMining OS offers a free test on one rig and no permanent free tier.

Braiins OS and LuxOS cost nothing to install but take a share of hashrate on every pool: 2–2.5% for Braiins OS depending on the model, 2.8% for LuxOS per Luxor’s docs. Luxor’s pool waives its pool fee, not the firmware fee; Braiins Pool refunds its pool fee for Braiins OS hashrate.

Flashing and first boot

1. Hive OS: add a worker, download its rig.conf, write the image to an 8 GB or larger drive, copy rig.conf onto the Hive partition and boot. Compare the published md5 checksum first.
2. mmpOS: in Rigs, Get mmpOS, download mmp-latest.img.xz and generate autoconf.txt, where you can set your own rig password. Write the image to an 8 GB or larger drive and copy autoconf.txt to the config partition; add netconf.txt for Wi-Fi or static IP, or vpn.txt for WireGuard.
3. SimpleMining OS: write the image to a 7 GB or larger drive, put your account email in config.txt and boot on cabled DHCP; Wi-Fi is still beta.

On Linux, identify the target device first, because dd overwrites whatever you point it at:

lsblk
xzcat mmp-latest.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=1M status=progress

For farms, Hive OS offers a bulk drive flashing utility and PXE boot, including diskless. SimpleMiningImager is a bootable stick that writes SMOS onto drives inside each rig and erases every attached drive. If a rig does not appear, plug a monitor into the first x16 GPU or the iGPU and check the boot order. Multi-GPU boards usually need Above 4G decoding; our BIOS and tuning tools guide covers board settings and VBIOS work.

Hive OS, mmpOS and SimpleMining OS day to day

Hive OS

The broadest toolset: AutoFan, Telegram and Discord alerts, SSH, a browser shell and VNC, scheduled tasks, watchdog hardware, read-only user roles, two-factor authentication and an API. It also manages ASICs through a client on stock firmware or Hiveon firmware. selfupgrade updates the system; logs-off cuts writes on USB sticks.

mmpOS

The newest driver stack of the three (NVIDIA 610 became the default in late September 2026), support for Intel Arc, CPUs and Xilinx FPGAs, and several miners per rig split by platform. Smart Memory Tune handles memory timings on supported cards. Version 5.0 dropped X11, so local changes go through SSH or a TTY. ASICs are not a focus.

SimpleMining OS

A clean rig list, batch commands (reboot, reload, pause, power off), up to a year of graphs and sleep schedules for hot days or expensive power hours. No ASIC management or CPU-rig mode, and the general stable image dates from September 2024, so new cards push you to the RTX 50 image or the beta.

ASIC firmware: Braiins OS and LuxOS vs stock

Stock Antminer firmware runs chips at a factory profile. Aftermarket firmware replaces it on the control board and tunes chips or hashboards to a power or hashrate target you set.

• Braiins OS autotunes every chip, steps power down when hot (Dynamic Performance Scaling) instead of shutting off, has a preheat stage and immersion mode, and speaks Stratum V2. The first autotune takes 1 to 9 hours. S9 machines stop at 22.08.1 and S17 at 23.01.
• LuxOS combines preset profiles with an AutoTuner, holds a set wattage as ambient temperature changes, and curtails to about 25 W in under five seconds. It also supports selected Whatsminer M50 and M60 variants.

Firmware notes before flashing: check the compatibility list for your model, control board and hashboard revision, and record the stock firmware version. LuxOS needs its Remote Install procedure on CVITEK boards and on Antminers with Bitmain firmware dated March 2024 or newer. Braiins OS can be tested on S19 units with Zynq or BeagleBone Black boards from a microSD card; remove the card and the miner is back on untouched stock firmware.

A failed flash or excessive power can damage hashboards or the PSU, and third-party firmware may affect your warranty, so ask your seller first. VNISH is another common Antminer firmware if neither supports your unit. Flash only machines you own or are authorised to manage.

Managing ASICs in batches

• Braiins Toolbox (GUI and command line) installs, upgrades and restores Braiins OS and changes pools, power targets and cooling in bulk; some features work on stock Antminer and Whatsminer firmware.
• Luxor Commander scans, monitors and installs LuxOS in bulk while keeping pool and network settings. The command-line LuxOS Installer works from a CSV list for large rollouts.
• APMinerTool still sets static IPs, pools and reboots on older Antminers, but it is dormant and does not see S19 units; BTC Tools is the usual substitute.

./braiins-toolbox firmware install --url 'stratum+tcp://YOUR_USERNAME.{{miner.ip_x}}@pool.example.com:3333' --power 3000 --dps on '10.10.10.*'

The Toolbox checks compatibility and asks before flashing. It needs ports 22, 80 and 50051 open to the miners.

Monitoring, alerts and a stability checklist

Hive OS alerts to Telegram or Discord when a rig goes offline, a GPU drops or temperatures climb. mmpOS shows OK, Miner down and Rig down with optional Telegram alerts. SimpleMining OS alerts on missing GPUs, repeated reboots and high temperatures. On ASICs, poll the firmware API: LuxOS answers on TCP 4028 and HTTP 8080; Braiins OS has a gRPC API with a REST wrapper.

echo '{"command":"version+summary"}' | nc MINER_IP 4028

After any change, check that every GPU or hashboard stays up for a full day, rejected shares stay low on the pool side, temperatures have headroom for your hottest day, and the rig falls back to a second pool and reconnects after a short network outage.

Security hardening and risk controls

• Get images, firmware and batch tools only from official sites and verify them: Hive OS publishes md5, Braiins publishes SHA-256 and a GPG key, and LuxOS update indices are signed since September 2026.
• Change the default rig or miner password on first login, enable two-factor authentication, and give helpers read-only roles where available.
• Keep rigs and ASICs on a private network; never expose SSH, miner web pages or API ports to the internet. Use a VPN for remote access.
• Antivirus may flag miners inside an image as potentially unwanted software because the same miners are abused by malware. Verify the file instead of disabling protection.
• Audit monthly: dashboard access, the wallet and pool each rig points to, OS and firmware versions, and any worker you did not add.

Backup, restore and rollback

Keep copies of each rig’s rig.conf, autoconf.txt or config.txt, a list of rig names, IPs and firmware versions, and your wallet addresses (never seed phrases) in a password manager. Before any VBIOS change, save the original BIOS of AMD cards with AMDVBFlash; Hive OS and mmpOS both include VBIOS flashing tools, and a bad image can brick a card.

1. Upgrade one or two rigs first and roll out only when they run cleanly; SimpleMining OS’s changelog gives the same advice.
2. If an update breaks a Hive OS rig, hive-replace -s -y moves it to a fresh stable image and keeps rig.conf. On mmpOS, mmp reimage rebuilds an outdated rig and keeps its config.
3. If a drive dies, flash a spare and copy the saved config file back.
4. To roll ASICs back, run ./braiins-toolbox firmware restore MINER_IP, use Commander’s uninstall option or the uninstallluxos API command, or remove the Braiins OS SD card.

How to choose

1. GPU rigs and ASICs in one account: Hive OS.
2. Up to 8 GPUs, Intel Arc, or Windows 10 rigs you want to keep: mmpOS.
3. GPU-only farm that values simplicity: try SimpleMining OS on one rig.
4. Antminers to tune: test Braiins OS and LuxOS on one unit each, then compare fee, supported boards and API.
5. Run your own power-cost numbers before buying more hardware.

FAQ

Is there a completely free mining OS?

Not among the maintained GPU options here. Hive OS is free for two workers and mmpOS for up to 8 GPUs; SimpleMining OS offers a free test on one rig. Braiins OS and LuxOS are free to install but take a dev fee from hashrate.

Hive OS vs mmpOS: which is better for a small farm?

Hive OS has the larger ecosystem, mobile apps and ASIC support, and bills per worker. mmpOS bills per active GPU, covers more cards for free, supports Intel Arc and manages Windows 10 rigs. Its FAQ describes an experimental live migration from Hive OS.

Does Braiins OS or LuxOS void my warranty?

It may. Third-party firmware changes how the miner runs, so ask your seller or manufacturer before flashing.

Can I go back to stock firmware?

Yes. Braiins Toolbox has firmware restore, LuxOS has an uninstall option and API command, and an SD-card Braiins OS install disappears when you remove the card.

Will a mining OS make my rigs more profitable?

It saves time and can improve efficiency, but profit still depends on electricity price, hardware efficiency and coin prices. Mine only on hardware you own or are authorised to use.

Last updated: 2 November 2026 · soft4mining editorial team. Licence, version and platform details are checked against each developer's official documentation.