On Saturday, April 28, 2012 13:23:21, Russ Allbery wrote: > Jonas Smedegaard <d...@jones.dk> writes: > > I also am biased in one direction but shall not say which as I see no > > benefit at this point in rehashing the discussion: Both packaging > > "camps" have clearly demonstrated a lack of interest in letting the > > other use the name "node", which means we must both step off of it. > > > > Just today there was progress on the side of Node.js - see bug#650343. > > I think that having Node.js not provide the command node would be a real > disservice to our users (and I say this as someone in neither camp; I've > never used either program).
In terms of Debian dependencies, there don't seem to be any packages that depend on the 'node' package from the hamradio section. This makes it tougher to know what depends on the binary being named 'node'. A problem with the name 'node' is that it's painful to web search that name to try to find out what the project is for. :-/ This is another reason not to like the use of such a generic name. The hamradio 'node' program looks like it is meant to support several packet radio protocols, either for a computer acting as a "packet radio router", "packet radio BBS" (bulletin-board system) or possibly for a "user end-node". I believe all of these invovle a computer being hooked up to a TNC [Terminal Node Controller] which is then hooked up to a radio. For an example of what a TNC looks like, see [1]. Generally packet radio involves low data rate communication. At VHF frequencies this is generally limited to 1200 baud simplex ("simplex" means not being able to receive during transmission, whereas "duplex" means being able to do both simultaneously) -- so the actual throughput is always quite a bit less than the transmission baud rate. At UHF frequencies due to wider channels the packet can be a bit faster -- up to 9600 baud. [At SHF and higher frequencies data rates can be faster Some TNCs also support other things such as slow scan TV reception, Morse Code, RTTY, "packet email" (stored in the TNC momory, blinking light to indicate a message is waiting), packet message forwarding (so that a message from New York eventually is received in some other part of the country, all over radio), etc. Due to low data rates, packet radio isn't as popular today as it was in the 1990's, when telephone modems that were typically in use were also slow. [The early 90's is when I was doing packet radio.] [1] http://www.timewave.com/support/PK-232/PK232DSP.html -- Chris -- Chris Knadle, KB2IQN chris.kna...@coredump.us GPG Key: 4096R/0x1E759A726A9FDD74
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