New Ham, New To Packet

New Ham, New To Packet

[Robert L Cochran]

Hello,

I'm new to amateur radio -- I just received my "Technician" class
license. I have not been on the air yet. I want to use packet radio with
my Red Hat 8.0 distribution. (I also downloaded and installed Debian
bf2.4 on an older Dell machine.)

I am wondering if the AX.25 HOW-TO posted to the Linux Documentation
project is still accurate? If I read this How To and follow it, will I
be able to implement packet radio on either the Red Hat or the Debian
machines? I'm interested in being pointed to up to date reading
material, I know there is a lot for me to study.

Thanks!

73,

Bob Cochran
KB3JCM

Re: New Ham, New To Packet

[M Taylor]

On Mon, Feb 24, 2003 at 07:47:03PM -0500, Robert L Cochran wrote:
> 
> I am wondering if the AX.25 HOW-TO posted to the Linux Documentation
> project is still accurate? If I read this How To and follow it, will I
> be able to implement packet radio on either the Red Hat or the Debian
> machines? I'm interested in being pointed to up to date reading
> material, I know there is a lot for me to study.

Welcome!

The general ideas in the AX.25 how-to are valid, some minor specific
details may have changed. I believe there are Red Hat 8.0 rpms available 
for the "core" ax.25 userland stuff (libax25, ax25-tools, ax25-apps) but
I don't know where off-hand. Since I am not Red Hat 8.0 on my ham box, 
and I enjoy compiling my own kernel I don't know if there is a RH 8 
compatible kernel rpm with AX.25 support (and KISS or other such interface 
module). 

The stock RH kernels include AX.25, but not any drivers/interfaces
such as KISS or 6PACK. So you will need to get a replacement, or
compile your own kernel. (It's only scary the first time. :)

Good luck,

-ve1mct

Re: New Ham, New To Packet

[Ben Stienstra]

> I am wondering if the AX.25 HOW-TO posted to the Linux Documentation
> project is still accurate? If I read this How To and follow it, will I
> be able to implement packet radio on either the Red Hat or the Debian
> machines? I'm interested in being pointed to up to date reading
> material, I know there is a lot for me to study.

Hi,
I'm running RedHat 8 with ax.25 support compiled as kernel modules.
Kernel version: 2.4.21-pre4. The howto is still accurate at most points.
Try to compile the ax.25 support en install the ax25-tools and
ax25-apps.

http://home.kabelfoon.nl/~cvangorp/ This page may help you with the main
steps to compile your kernel.

good luck,
PD2BS, Ben

Re: New Ham, New To Packet

[Bob Nielsen]

On Mon, Feb 24, 2003 at 07:47:03PM -0500, Robert L Cochran wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm new to amateur radio -- I just received my "Technician" class
> license. I have not been on the air yet. I want to use packet radio with
> my Red Hat 8.0 distribution. (I also downloaded and installed Debian
> bf2.4 on an older Dell machine.)
> 
> I am wondering if the AX.25 HOW-TO posted to the Linux Documentation
> project is still accurate? If I read this How To and follow it, will I
> be able to implement packet radio on either the Red Hat or the Debian
> machines? I'm interested in being pointed to up to date reading
> material, I know there is a lot for me to study.
> 

The current HOWTO is still accurate.  You might take a look at some of
the files on N8UR's web site (http://www.febo.com) for some additional
information. 

I haven't used Red Hat for several years so I can't speak to that, but
you should be able to run AX.25 with no problems using Debian.  I don't
know about the bf2.4 kernel, however.  The installation kernels are
configured to fit on floppies and may not have as many drivers included
as those which you can install from a CD or the internet.  I am running
kernel-image-2.4.20-686 (which has the necessary drivers compiled as
modules) with ax25-tools and libax25, all installed from Debian
packages.

73,
Bob, N7XY