AMRAD Linux CD

[Frank Gentges]

Maitland and Tacoistas,

I think AMRAD brings an important perspective to what a Linux 
Distribution might include.  You have the experience and expertise to 
put a lot of pieces together.

Many hams have indicated to me that they tried Linux of one sort or 
another and have not taken to using it as their main operating system.

I have been thinking in terms of using a dumpster grade computer in the 
ham shack where a computer is dedicated to ham radio activities without 
infringing on the family computer use.  I suspect we could make all our 
software run on a P3-600 or above.  Maybe even a P200,  as Linux is not 
the processor hog that Windows has become.

This computer could include email and something like OpenOffice for day 
to day activities in the ham shack but it would include a simple robust 
version of Linux that would not require a lot of expertise to use.  It 
might be useful to have it run live but then I think an installation 
would permit more involved use with all those parameters that each ham 
will want to set just once.  Ubunto did a nice job of providing both.

The disk would include a lot of software, information and material on 
all the stuff we are seeing on SDR, SoftRock, PSK-31 etc that run under 
Linux.  As new releases or programs come out it should make it easy to 
download and install.  Maybe AMRAD should take these releases and 
repackage them with some installation package to simplify installation 
and getting them running.  I can recall spending a lot of time trying to 
figure out the command line needed  to decompress and update a program 
once it is downloaded.

I have a lot of info on SDR and SoftRock I have downloaded from sites 
like Yahoo groups or I have scanned in.  We could add some of this to 
make the CD a source of good info in the ham shack.

It looks like a high quality sound card will work much better for these 
SDRs so we can provide info we have learned on improving performance at 
the sound card level.  High quality sound cards are not necessarily the 
expensive ones so our knowledge could be really useful.  Perhaps some 
test and diagnostic software to evaluate one's own sound card could be 
included.

And then we are talking about trying some new HF signals so this would 
be perfect framework in which to distribute this work to the members so 
everyone is running a common package.  We can send everyone scurrying 
into dumpsters and out to yard sales looking for suitable computers to 
try out our latest work.

Does the AMRAD web site have the facilities and bandwidth to support 
distribution of the CD image(s) or do we need to look for something 
different?

AMRAD LINUX CD...Should be Not Just Another Linux Distribution.

Just some thoughts.  Now back to your regular programming.

Oh yes,  what does the AFU stand for in AFU-Knoppix.  Somehow my mind is 
stuck on only one set of words.

Frank K0BRA


Maitland Bottoms wrote:
> Robert E. Seastrom writes:
>  > "A. Maitland Bottoms" <aa4hs at amrad.org> writes:
>  > 
>  > > However, it is getting easier to make your own: I will
>  > > try my hand at making a Debian Live CD with AFU-Knoppix
>  > > packages.
>  > 
>  > That's called Ubuntu, right?  <ducking>  :-)
>
> To be sure, a key tool used is called casper - which was
> developed by Canonical and used to create Ubuntu Live CDs.
>
> On my Debian box I can now `apt-get install live-package`
> which takes care of getting casper and other tools, and
> `make-live` and end up with a bootable Debian Live CD image.
>
> I find qemu to be useful in running Live CD images,
> no need to burn media and look for another computer to use.
>
>  > http://bbspot.com/News/2000/4/linux_distros.html
>
> That was in the back of my mind... thanks for
> providing the URL.
>
> -Maitland
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