I had been entertaining the idea of building an Ethereum mining rig for months and the price surge in May made it seem like as good a time as any to begin the process. So I sold some of my Ether, bought some computer hardware, and set to work learning about building PCs and the art of Linux.But before I dive into the unnecessarily painful process of setting up an Ethereum mining rig as a complete n00b, let's brush up on some Ethereum basics.