February 10, 2005
The very first thing I'd recommend is getting some reading material. Plan to spend some time getting familiar with the installation procedure and Linux/UNIX terminology and syntax. Adding a second operating is a bit more involved than installing the latest office suite (although not much harder these days!) and requires some study as there will be new ways of doing things to learn.
Linux is quite capable of being a powerful TCP/IP switch offering all of the popular Internet services over the ham radio packet network. If you're a bit rusty on TCP/IP based networks, or need to learn more about TCP/IP, networks in general, or network administration, I recommend the following documents available in a variety of formats at The Linux Documentation Project.
Network Administrator's Guide -- General networking info (HTML)
Linux Networking HOWTO -- A guide to configuring Linux networking (HTML)
AX25-HOWTO -- A guide specific to configuring TCP/IP on Linux (HTML)
A number of packages are available for the ham running Linux and more are evolving. A Web page with descriptions of the very latest ham software is available at the Linux Hamradio Applications and Utilities Homepage. Some things not listed at the Linux Hamradio Applications and Utilities Homepage are available at Ibiblio formerly known as Metalab and before that Sunsite, sigh. Many non-ham specific packages are available and a good place to look is Freshmeat.Net a site dedicated to the latest software announcements for Linux. Also, don't forget the archives for your particular distribution. The binaries provided are compiled and tested for your system and will require much less effort to get working. If you must have the latest and greatest, then get the source and compile your own.
This section was originally written in early 1998 when Linux was just starting to hit the mainstream. While the main programs in use have certainly changed, the underlying concepts remain.
While there is a fair amount of software already available for ham use under Linux, namely satellite tracking, TCP/IP support, and AX.25 BBS software, I think the development has lagged in one key area--end user software. By this I mean contest logging software on a par with CT, TR, and others, host mode packet software on a level with Ka/PkGold, radio control/daily logging software, SSTV software, and programs that support APRS (although the SSTV and APRS areas now each have a good package available). I think these applications are absolutely critical for Linux to become commonplace in the ham-shack. Other nice things will be schematic drawing programs (CAD, already becoming available) and license training software (although web based practice exams may reduce the need for this).
How long it takes for the ham radio market for Linux software to reach "critical mass" depends on how much longer hams are willing to put up with Microsoft's upgrade cycles. I think it will happen when a majority of hams decide Windows is too limiting for the special things we do with computers in the shack and when moving to Linux doesn't mean abandoning familiar software. F6FBB has been maintaining versions of his BBS software for DOS, Win, and Linux from a common source tree for a few years now. So, the sooner we can convince K1EA to port CT and N6TR TR, the sooner the contest community will adopt Linux, same goes for Interflex and KaGold, or any other popular DOS/Win program you care to mention. Another area I see that Linux support will be needed is the new crop of computer controlled radio hardware. These products, such as those from Kachina, ICOM, and Ten-Tec are now only operable from within Win9x and not Linux. These manufacturers should be gently encouraged to port their control programs to Linux or provide interface specifications so that a Free Software version can be written to support their hardware. As I understand it, Ten-Tec and Kachina have made their specifications publicly available and should be congratulated for doing so. In fact, Ten-Tec has released its Windows code under the GPL and released an extensive Programmers Guide. Unfortunately, software for Linux has yet to appear.
Guessing at a time line of when Linux will be the standard in the ham-shack is a bit difficult, but, if I may, I'll go out on a limb. Looking back, ham radio "power users" were early adopters of computer hardware. Many hams bought computers (often built by Radio Shack or Commodore) and put them to work in various tasks around the ham-shack. The cheap IBM PC clones began to appear in the mid '80s after Jeff WA7MBL wrote his MBL BBS software and YAPP a terminal packet program for MS-DOS systems. About the same time K1EA released CT, a DOS based contest logging program, and the ham radio contest world jumped into the computer world for good. Next W0RLI ported his popular RLI BBS software, originally written for the Xerox 820, to DOS and by the late '80s virtually every packet BBS was running on an MS-DOS based PC clone. So by my calculations it took the ham power users about 6 to 8 years to adopt the DOS platform en masse after its introduction in 1981. However, even in 1991, ten years after the PC debuted and the year Linux was born, a good number of end user hams were using Radio Shack CoCos and Commodore 64 for packet terminals and other minor tasks. This changed in the early '90s as PCs became almost a commodity product and powerful software offerings from MFJ, AEA, Interflex, and others began to attract the interests of hams. Windows 3.1 was introduced in 1992 and now a reasonably stable GUI was available for PCs which enticed even more hams and software authors out of the older hardware and in the DOS/Win world.
Now, I see Linux being adopted by more of the ham power users, those wanting the most stable TCP/IP switch or BBS platform available. Hopefully, the next year will produce contest logging software comparable to CT and the next two to three years will produce the "killer" end user ham application that will cause the migration of a majority of hams to Linux. Here is why I see this happening (these are my opinions only (like the rest of these pages!)):
Each new version of Windows requires an expensive Software Developer's Kit from Microsoft and most small commercial or shareware authors will find it costly to support Win 95, 98, and NT all at once. Linux distributions offer (IMHO the best) professional quality development tools and a stable environment based on published UNIX standards (POSIX) so the APIs won't change with each kernel release. NO undocumented APIs exist! They can't be undocumented as all the system source code is available for inspection by the developer. The X Window System provides a stable and published API for GUI apps.
Hams tend to hang on to hardware longer than the computing population at large. Thus, there is a large number of mid to high end 486 and low to mid range Pentium systems in ham-shacks that are said to be too limited for Win98, NT and Win 2k. Linux, however, supports these systems well and probably will for some time in the future. This adds value to currently owned equipment or equipment that can obtained second hand. Linux wins here as it can effectively multi-task applications and support multiple users on this "obsolete" hardware with ease.
A Linux distribution includes an astonishing array of development tools that support practically every programming language in use. A number of libraries exist to make interfacing with the OS and hardware much easier than having to write everything as under DOS. A standard device driver interface exists in the kernel and it is quite well documented. If there is doubt on how the kernel handles a certain function, the source is always available to provide the answer. Free Software means never having to settle for an OS whose API is documented one way and works another again (unless you run the latest development kernels :-D ).
Linux has garnered a reputation of high stability and reliability. While this isn't a high priority for a normal ham-shack user, it is nice to know that even if some program suffers a horrendous crash and "dumps core" (meaning the kernel creates a file of memory data to aid in debugging the program) the OS will very likely keep on going and not miss a beat. Compare this to messages on your screen saying your system has become unstable and should be restarted...
There are Linux systems with up-times measured not in days, or weeks, but months and probably a couple somewhere a few years or more. Some system administrators have stated that the only time their Linux system has been restarted is to upgrade the kernel or replace hardware. I for one have gotten so used to my system's stability that even using Win NT at work can drive me nuts!
A commercial quality OS that has native AX.25 support? Yup! Nearly all custom ham hardware is supported by the kernel through the AX.25 utilities. In fact a driver is available to use a SoundBlaster 16 sound board as a 9600 bps packet modem! To the rest of the system packet links appear to be just another network interface and all the standard network tools can be used to create the ultimate AX.25 TCP/IP switch, email, ftp, telnet, and http server over packet radio.
When creating that ultimate server, you want to be sure that programs and users can only access the areas on the system they are supposed to. With Linux's native multiuser support, these issues are handled well. Even so, other packages such as iptables (ipchains in kernel version 2.2.x) in kernel 2.4.x onward allow you to erect a "firewall" to keep ham, local networks, and the Internet separated. Security is an important part of Linux's design and many tools are available to help the system administrator with this task.
Linux is an ongoing project on the part of many developers worldwide. Interestingly, the current maintainer of the 2.2.x kernel series and oft considered the Second Lieutenant of kernel development, Alan Cox, is GW4PTS. You can be sure that ham support will probably always be there and up to date.
While all the source code for Linux is copyright of the respective authors, the GNU General Public License ensures that the source code will be made available for all to inspect and change or improve as long as such changes are well documented in the source. While this might not seem all that important, it is important to realize that Linux will not become a victim of its owner's marketing hype. It also means that the operating system is owned as much by the user community as by those who develop it. Obscure bugs affecting a minority of users will not be passed over in favor of feature creep (aka creature feep). If the bug is vexing enough, someone will fix it and forward the fix to the developers where it will be added to the main source tree. This is the biggest advantage Free Software has over its proprietary competition. Hams benefit since this platform will probably remain more stable than the current commercial offerings in the next 5 to 10 years and perhaps beyond.
Yeah, well, this isn't really a ham radio issue and was more hype than threat, but it should be said that Linux keeps its clock independent of the hardware clock. Linux, as a result of being POSIX compliant, keeps its time in a 32 bit number and figures the date by counting seconds from Jan 01, 1970. It is said this is enough range so that date roll over won't occur until sometime in 2038. By then, if we're still using Linux or UNIX, surely a 64 bit clock will be employed, which will probably put off the roll over problem for a couple of thousand years. ;-)
These ramblings are barely a drop in the ocean of knowledge concerning Linux and could probably be much better. Yet, I hope I've piqued your curiosity and that you'll at least give Linux a try. You really have nothing to lose and a whole lot of fun, adventure, and learning to gain.
Original content Copyright © 1997-2024 Nate Bargmann NØNB n0nb@n0nb.us
any other content copyright by respective author(s).
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