Thanks for the encouragement Frank. For over 2 years now Gerald had been telling me that Oh yes the SDR-1000 was going to be supported by Linux.
As I told Dave, W1HJK, in a private E-Mail and I was going to address Andy's and Roger Rehr's comment. For those of us who eun Linux either just because its different or have been using it for years or hate MS or a hundred other reasons, I think that it would be nice to make amateru radio applications as simple to run under Linux as most MS amateur radio applications are under MS. <skip down seven paragraphs to leave out my history> But let me tell you where I'm coming from... I have been doind tactical HF communications for over 30 years, the last 8 on my own supporting the local office of emergency management and a disaster relief organization. Before that I was doing tactical HF communications for the Air Force and spend a tour in Saudi during Desert Shiled and Storm as chief of communications for the aeromedical evecuation effort. They had through that time only used HF and has just started using data mixed with voice a couple of years before Desert Shield started in August of 1990. I had worked in my civilian job with the Air Force as an IT procurement analyst and ran the a huge E-Mail system using 10 AT&T 3B2 computers and then the first Air Force electronic commerce web site. A friend and one of my technical support persons suggested that I load Linux on a 386 PC and run multiple desktops rather than have 10 monitors on my desk. That was August of 1991. From the 3B2s we went to web servers using medium size Sun servers and Linux workstations. I never was anything but a Linux user and never got much into configuring Linux, etc. When I left that job in 1999, I went to another base that ran MS clients and servers. I have now over 150 MS clients and 6 MS servers to baby sit. I have had to load NT on all of our clients and servers, then W2K and last time XP on the clients. The servers still run W2K server. I can truthfully say that loading MS is a breeze...but having to load Linux on 10 different personal computers with the last two, one being Mandrake and one (the last one) being SuSe 9.?, I find that loading them NO problem but runing amateur radio applications a real pain when compaired to MS applications. <End my history> I believe that this is why so many hams have an objection to Linux. I find myself coming home and wanting to operate HF data modes and not having to fool around for days trying to get an applications to work or load various libraries, etc. So without pointing any fingers at the amateur radio community...since this IS for most of us a "hobby" or perhaps a "love affair", it would be nice to have Linux applications that are easy to load and run withour compiling and go out and find various different dependencies. I think the latest and very fine example of the sort of amateur radio applications I have loaded is Fldigi by Dave, W1HKJ. Now my Mandarake distro is so old I need to update one library but that's not really a problem or a fault of the applications. And peaking of fine amateur radio things, the theory and construction of the SDR-1000 is super. For the amateur radio operator I believe that it is and will be a leader in the change from the typical radios we have available no to amateur radio operators to SDR radios. Perhaps even a more important step than the Central Electronics 10A/B and 20A/B transmitter and the Drake 2B receiver and Gonset GSB-100 transmitter. I believe that we will see building block SDR radios. Perhaps a case with a number of card slots and you plug in SDR component block cards and build you custom SDR radio. I also look for the same sort of approach for PSK and other data mode radios that are small and portable and replace the current number of QRP rigs. Further, I can see building custom high power amplifiers around various amplfier modules. All these thing will not only bring amateur radio back int the lime light in communications services but also spur iondividuals to get back into the rig building mode and since many of you have such great talent in programming that you can help us by building modular applications and show is the code and explain to us how it works so we can modify it such as Skip Teller did with PSK63 and whomever created PSK125 and like Merray and group did with MFSK-16 and all the other new modes. We need to be able to run them and do lots of beta testing and find out which ones work the best. So I AM frustrated righ now with how Linux is being presented to amateur radio but know that the talent is out there...many on this list, who have the capability so put forth simple code and OF's like me can customize applications. I am counting on everyone's individual talents be they programmer, builder, operator, etc to work in concert to being amateur radio into the leading edge of communications in the 21st Century and especially in the HF data transmission area. 73, Walt/K5YFW Frank Brickle wrote: > --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, Walt DuBose <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >>I'm not going to spend $1500 for an SDR transceiver I can't run from > > Linux. > > Roger's website is the best source for information on getting started. > There will be new information forthcoming by the end of the weekend. > > As of a couple of days ago, sdr-core and sdr-shell are now running > under Mac OSX as well. > > I think it's accurate to say that Flex isn't going to attach any > importance to real Linux support unless users demand it and demand it > vocally. That's exactly what happened with CW. The importance of > decent CW performance was dismissed out of hand until it became clear > that the lack of it was costing them sales. Once the point was made, > the CW performance was improved beyond recognition to its present high > standard. > > 73 > Frank > AB2KT >
