I have been wanting to add my humble hashrate contribution to the network for a while now.
I wanted to first get a dedicated machine, with at least 200GB for the full and blockchain, running 24x7, with all the bells and whistles...
So I kept pushing it off, further and further. "I don't have the hardware", "I don't have 200GB", "I don't have a monero node for maximum privacy"...
Today I realised that I should at least try it a bit. Just a tiny bit and see how it goes.
Thank you @XMRbutterfly for your post
I went to the gupax website just to see what it looks like, there is a short video explaining the process.
Downloaded, added a monero address, clicked start. BOOM! I am already running a monero miner on p2pool mini!
It was actually surprisingly fast and easy. None of the roadblocks I imagined were actually real.
I don't have to run it on a separate dedicated machine (I can always do that later), I don't have to allocate 200GB for it (I am using a remote node for now, so 0GB for that), I don't have to run my own node first (this setup is already a good start).
Why didn't I try this earlier? I don't know, don't ask me =D
In any case, just so you know, you can try it right now in just a few minutes, and even if you stop mining after a while, that's perfectly fine too.
I am using a new wallet for this, I don't actually plan on using the cents I will receive there.
Using the smaller pools is an interesting idea, I might try that later on