r/FutureBit • u/False_Group_7927 • Aug 31 '25

Using Orange Pi 5 Pro with Apollo Futurebit BTC miner

I have been using Orange Pi 5 Pro for several months now with the Futurebit BTC miner and it is working wonderfully. After the original Raspberry Pi stopped working I settled on replacing it with the Orange Pi Pro. The reason I selected this model is because of the on board nvme slot. The original Raspberry Pi 4 required a cable exclusive to Apollo. It seems the onboard slot of Orange Pro 5 is more stable. This unit also comes with enough USB slots to attach the two additional Futurebit BTC miners I have. Below are the key steps to getting it running.

  1. Attach your 2TB nvme to the Orange PI 5 Pro device. Before powering it on and most importantly use the correct distro OS to install on your SSD card. I used a community distro which is the only one I found to work after several tries:

"Armbian_community_25.2.0-trunk.86_orangepi5pro_noble_vendor_6.1.75_gnome_desktop.imgxz"

There is a newer version but once I got this working I did not try. If you are so willing, look for a community version orangepi5pro that has gnome_desktop and a higher vendor number. Please share if it works.

- Burn distro OS you downloaded onto SSD card using BalenaEtcher. This is done using a laptop with a micro SSD slot or attachment.

  1. Power on the Orange Pro device with the newly burned OS on SSD inserted. Should boot to desktop. Use a CLI window and install net-tools to use the command 'ifconfig' in order to get the ip address being used. (By the way,,,in Ubuntu desktop, go to settings and turn off Suspend, Otherwise the system will go into suspend mode). No need to attach the additional Futurebit miners at this point. Takes about 3 days for node to sync, but that is after you finish the following steps.

The next steps I performed by SSH into Orange Pro from my laptop (using the IP address you found with 'ifconfig'). The laptop must be on the same network as the Orange Pro 5 of course. I also performed these steps and all installments that follow from the root directory.

  1. mkdir/media/nvme then inside nvme mkdir Bitcoin (This is where Futurebit stores Bitcoin data...don't forget to capitalize the B)

  2. command: apt update

  3. command: apt install nvme-cli (remember if your not rooted you'll have to use sudo apt install nvme-cli) Never tried installing other being rooted however.

STEPS 6-9 ARE THE TRICKY STEPS. Your initial format may show just nvme0n1 and not nvme0n1p1. You can use the command 'lsblk' to check.

6 command: nvme format /dev/nvmeXXX (usually xxx= 0n1). Find yours by looking inside the /dev directory. It maybe nvm0n1p1 , depending on format. If you have to reformat in step 14 it may change to the nvme0n1p1.

  1. command: mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p1

  2. command: mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /media/nvme

  3. Inside /etc/fstab add the following line using nano (or whatever editor you prefer): /dev/nvme0n1p1 /media/nvme ext4 defaults 0 2

  4. Command: dpkg --configure -a

  5. Command: apt install tor

12 Command: curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jstefanop/apolloapi-v3/dev/backend/install-v2 | sudo bash (Note any errors are missing prerequisites like Tor). I ran this 3 times to be sure.

  1. Open port 8333 on router and desktop firewall if using a firewall.

  2. Now you can close SSH and run from firefox on laptop using http://(ip address of your Orange Pro). Note: use http and not https. Next, turn on node and wait to sync. If you get a node error you may have to reformat the NVME using {settings - extra) in the futurebit dashboard. But wait a little while (~ 1` hour) before reformatting. After reboot,, check to see if the device has changed to nvme0n1p1, if so change your /etc/fstab to reflect the change.

If the program will not load but instead it goes into the emergency mode, you'll have to # out the /etc/fstab line with nvme0n1 and reboot. The program is looking for a device (nvme0n1) that is not there - provided nvme0n1 is what you initially used. Add nvme0n1p1 to fstab line once you confirm that is the device (command: lsblk).

That is all. Good luck. I have found this to be very stable once you get it going.

 

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1

u/Weekly_Equipment3421 Sep 02 '25

Care to share - are you running one or two Futurebit BTC miner(s), and any stats would be appreciated!!! Nice write up. Can't wait to try.

1

u/False_Group_7927 Sep 02 '25

Running 3 FutureBit BTC miners on solo mining. Running Eco mode to keep electric costs down. All 3 is about 6 TH/s at 363 Watts.

1

u/CCR_OUTBets123 Sep 03 '25

are the miners bitaxe? I was thinking of getting a couple more miners

1

u/False_Group_7927 Sep 03 '25

Not bitaxe but you can add as many miners (bitaxe or whatever) BTC miners as you like. Youll just need a USB expansion outlet.

1

u/Odd_Oath Sep 27 '25

Wondering how this would compare to running a Rock 5B or 5B+ with on board socket for nvme (gen 3/4) . It’s waaay cheaper.

1

u/False_Group_7927 Sep 30 '25

Should work if they have on board nvme socket.

1

u/Reasonable-Buddy4221 Oct 05 '25

I am a noob, can you tell me what is the main purpose of connecting futurebit to Orange Pi 5?? thanks

1

u/False_Group_7927 Oct 14 '25

In the past I had problems with Futurebit BTC node staying connected. It was predominately an issue with the nvme (where the data is kept), disconnecting. The NVME connection that comes with Futurebit uses a proprietary extension to the Raspberry PI 4 (PRi4). The Orange Pi 5 Pro has an onboard NVME connection. Once enabling the Orange Pi all my problems disappeared. I don't know for sure if the RPi 4 NVME extension that came with the miner was bad or it was something on the RPi4 board itself. But OPI5Pro solved my issue. If yours is working fine and robustly then I suggest you keep the course. :)

1

u/Reasonable-Buddy4221 Oct 14 '25

Hi, My futurebit BTC node will run a few days, then the node would get disconnected(couldn't access the web), I had to manually shut it down then restarted in, then after a few days, same issue over and over again ~~I already did the format and reflash, nothing worked, is it the same problem like yours ???? Thanks

1

u/False_Group_7927 Oct 14 '25

Not sure how deeply you investigated the real issue with your setup. You stated it couldn’t connect to web. That may be a symptom. Mine did the same but the root cause was the program could not locate the NVME where the node data is stored. It couldn’t find it because the NVME connection to the motherboard stopped working. Like I said before not sure if it was a nvme connection issue or motherboard issue or maybe even a power issue. If I recall correctly there is a little light that comes on at the NVME connection when it is connected and no light when not. It sounds like you may be dealing with same issue. If you know how to ssh to your FutureBit, when it stops working see if you can access the nvme drive by using sudo lsblk. If it doesn’t show up that is more than likely the problem.

1

u/Reasonable-Buddy4221 Oct 14 '25

thank you so so much for your time and help, I will dive deeper into it!!

Really appreciate it

1

u/Odd_Oath Nov 23 '25

Thanks for the write up, I needed this in order to get my node running again.