Re: New Ham, New To Packet

[Bob Nielsen <nielsen@oz.net>]

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