Dear @blackhatzw: I would love that, but unfortunately we do not have the engineering capacity to support Windows and Mac for the 1.0 launch.
However, it should be straightforward for someone else to port it to Windows, and @adam already said he built it on Mac (I've successfully built Zcash on OS X... Ask me anything!), so there’s hope! 
Good, actually Linux is okay to me and I will bring my friends to mine and buy this coin.
Huh, so the post title ‘How to mine Zcash’ actually has no instructions on how to mine…
Are there any other posts on here that I’m not aware of which have instructions?
Is the Public Alpha Guide(Home · zcash/zcash Wiki · GitHub) essentially what I’m looking for? I’ve never mined before so just by scrolling through the Github page I’m not able to tell. I’m not a total noob - I’m in software dev, but have never mined.
If the PAG is not what I’m looking for, where can I turn to? How different would a Bitcoin mining tutorial be from Zcash? BTW, I have a very bad memory and have become very big on documentation, so if anybody can help nudge me along in the right direction I would love to create a more straight forward, fool proof guide of how to get started for beginners(I’d probably end up making it for myself anyways). I may also make some helpful scripts to compliment str4d’s and danda’s scripts(Simple "wallet" scripts).
Thanks in advance for your help and responses!
To mine: zcashd -gen. Or add gen=1 to zcash.conf.
You are correct, the public alpha guide the best thing we have right now as far as a tutorial goes.
I am new to Linux and Mining in general so it has been a bit of an uphill battle for me: learning the linux interface, learning to install zcash/mine it, finding bugs, setting up my own computer, etc…but I like the challenge.
I’ll be happy to help you any way I can. I have also been meaning to make a noobs guide, its a good idea to help more people get involved.
Have any major pool developers been contacted to set up a pool. I think Zcash would benefit from this. I think this you need to be a computer whiz stuff will hurt the overall image. Providing pools and wallets for the masses is critical
a noob guide would be a good and valuable thing Shawn 
Can’t believe how rude a lot of the questions here come across, demanding answers and all that like the devs owe you something.
I cannot find a reference, but I remember reading somewhere that the algorithm is also pool-resistant (as well as GPU- and ASIC-resistant).
I can’t fathom how an algo could be pool resistant…
There are PoW algos that are pool resistant (aka “non-outsourceable” ). You simply design the PoW algorithm so that the act of mining requires the miner to have possession of the privkey corresponding to the coinbase address of the block they are trying to solve.
For example, one proof of work algo simply requires the miner to sign the (hash of the) blockheader with the prikey of the coinbase address over and over again until the hash of the signature contains enough leading zeros. This algorithm is non-outsourceable (because the miner must have the privkey of the coinbase address in order to do work). For a pool to mine together on such a PoW algorithm would require that all miners in the pool have the privkey (and thus the ability to spend) the block reward.
We do this in the generation of GUIDs used on the OpenBazaar DHT to increase the cost of an eclipse attack.
The above algorithm is NOT ASIC resistant though. Equihash is much better.
At the end of the day, though, pools are actually a useful tool for mining cryptocurrencies, as they radically reduce the variance of the block reward. As the difficulty rises, the variance of the reward earned by a solo miner skyrockets to the point where they may as well be playing the Powerball.
Pools help level out that variance and allow miners to collect a steady income.
Thanks for the reply, that was very interesting.
Does this mean pools will have a much harder time integrating zcash? Will solo-miners have the advantage for a long time before pools are up and running?
Oh no not at all. It will be easy for pools to integrate Equihash. Equihash is not pool-resistant. I just went on a small tangent about non-outsourceable PoWs in general. None of that applies to zcash or equihash.
Pools will work with zcash exactly the same way they work with bitcoin.
Thanks for the reply, looking forward to its launch!
Hey Austin, I was very dismayed to hear you describe mining Zcash as like entering to win the Powerball once a lot of people start mining. How much chance does the Equihash PoW rely on? ie what would be the point of optimizing the code for smart phones as zooko has indicated he plans to do, if one who was mining with the phone plugged in all night/every night has little or no chance of ever finding a block? thanks
Its certain there will be mining pools so even if mining ends up optimised for smart phones they will surely mine on a pool and receive a small stead flow of coins, otherwise it would be a waste of time.
Hello - have been running the zcash daemon for a few days with the latest build etc… I received a message about checking the network connection today and since then I cannot connect to the test net. I brought the machine down and back up. The network interface is working (can ping, ftp to the internet etc) but I cannot connect to the test net. Could someone please advise as to what logs I should look at to determine the issue…
Thanks
Well, solo mining will always be like playing the powerball (once the difficulty gets high enough). But you’ll be able to point your phone (or any other device) at a mining pool and be able to generate a steady stream of coins that way.
Think of solo mining like buying a lottery ticket where you have a 1 in a thousand chance of winning, and when you win you get $1000. You can buy one ticket per day.
You can either play by yourself (solo mine) and win $1000 about once every 1000 days… OR you can join a pool of 1000 people where, when someone in the pool wins, the winnings get split evenly with everyone.
If you go with the pool you’ll make about $1 every day. If you play by yourself, you only win once in a blue moon… but when you do win you win big.
That’s why most people join pools instead of solo mining.
And you can join a pool with your phone, so it’s okay.
This is going to be one huge botnet coin.