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# Lotus
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Lotus is an implementation of the **Filecoin Distributed Storage Network** . You can run the Lotus software client to join the **Filecoin Testnet** .
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For more details about Filecoin, check out the [Filecoin Spec ](https://github.com/filecoin-project/specs ).
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## What can I learn here?
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- How to install Lotus on [Arch Linux ](https://docs.lotu.sh/en+install-lotus-arch ), [Ubuntu ](https://docs.lotu.sh/en+install-lotus-ubuntu ), or [MacOS ](https://docs.lotu.sh/en+install-lotus-macos ).
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- Joining the [Lotus Testnet ](https://docs.lotu.sh/en+join-testnet ).
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- [Storing ](https://docs.lotu.sh/en+storing-data ) or [retrieving ](https://docs.lotu.sh/en+retrieving-data ) data.
- Mining Filecoin using the **Lotus Storage Miner** in your [CLI ](https://docs.lotu.sh/en+mining ).
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## What makes Lotus different?
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Lotus is architected modularly to keep clean API boundaries while using the same process. Installing Lotus will include two separate programs:
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- The **Lotus Node**
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- The **Lotus Storage Miner**
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The **Lotus Storage Miner** is intended to be run on the machine that manages a single storage miner instance, and is meant to communicate with the **Lotus Node** via the websocket **JSON-RPC** API for all of the chain interaction needs.
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This way, a mining operation may easily run a **Lotus Storage Miner** or many of them, connected to one or many **Lotus Node** instances.
