Slashdot Mirror
America's Hams Embrace Linux
Anonymous Coward writes "The current survey question over on the eham site shows that around 40% of Amateur Radio operators that responded to the survey are using Linux/Unix as an operating system in some form or other. Part of the ham radio charter is to 'experiment and innovate'...seems the tradition is alive and well in ham radio. Some of the comments are interesting as well ...What's Amateur/Ham Radio? See www.eham.net/newham/"
No need for a new Linux distro - most of the ham interfaces work fine with all distros and are available as RPMs, DEBs, etc. You will find slightly higher percentages of hams using SuSE (because of a tradition of working on ham apps) and Slackware (just for its "tinkerability") distros than in the regular Linux user population, IMHO.
For the ultimate in merging Linux with radios:
GNU Radio
From the FAQ:
This shouldn't be too much of a surprise I think. The main menu for the Linux kernel has "Amateur Radio" options in it. So they have taken the time to add support for AX.25 (a variation of X.25 used for packet radio) and added it to the kernel as well as drivers for a bunch of interfaces.
Last time I played with it (about kernel 2.2.12) it worked fine and connected to the rest of the packet users without any problems. Made it really easy to pass packets destined for the AMPR out from my network at home.
40.
yep.. I see this too. Many hams I know are not linux/unix users. I also have a hard time finding open source/etc solutions for ham problems. software like radio mobile, echolink, and other usefull ham apps are only available in windows.
When it comes to packet radio, there is a lot more linux stuff going on.. mostly because packet started before windows existed, and the only OS that networked was UNIX.
Besides looking on eham.net and arrl.org web sites, you might try to find out where your local ham club is... the best resource for amateur radio information are the amateur radio operators!
you might be able to find a good starter radio on ebay for under 100 bucks.
the technician class license is really easy to get, and you don't even have to know morse code to get licensed (general and extra classes require 5 words per minute proficiency). It helps if you have some electronics background, though.
--- sig moved for great justice.
Yes, more hams are getting into Linux, mainly because experimentation is in their blood... but the question is "what are hams passionate about?"-- answer: ham radio, not necessarily computing, although integration of the two is occuring at a faster pace now.
As a ham, I want my tools to work and work well. I want to spend my time on my hobby (radio) and not that much time figuring out how to use or configure my tools (OS's).
IMHO, linux will begin to rule when it:
1. Has a more intuitive GUI/Menu with descriptive application names that tell me what the app does.
2. Has an application installation procedure that my wife can figure out.
3. When lunatic-fringe linux geeks stop bashing "windoze" simply because it's easy to use.
What am I running right now? XP
Why?
It gives me what I need with the least amount of effort on my part. Call me an "appliance operator" or whatever, but I'm spending more time on what I enjoy: ham radio.
Linux CAME FROM [experimentation]
Actually, Linux came out of Linus wishing he could have his own copy of Minix without having to pay for it. So, rather than resorting to outright piracy/theft (as in theft of the install disks from the university), he reverse-engineered it.
Matthew G P Coe
http://mgpcoe.blogspot.com/
Also known as: There and back again, an operating system's tale
As Apple clearly states in their Darwin FAQ, "Darwin is a version of the BSD UNIX operating system that offers advanced networking, services such as the Apache web server, and support for both Macintosh and UNIX file systems." I think we all agree that BSD is in fact UNIX with a capital UNIX. In fact it is one of two bloodlines for Genetic UNIX, the other being AT&T's progeny. Everything which calls itself UNIX once had to be genetically descended from one of these two codebases.
As you may or may not know, many if not most commercial UNIX vendors based some releases on BSD, and some on System whatever. SunOS4 is based on BSD 4.something, for example, and SunOS5 (commonly called "Solaris") is System V. So everything today called UNIX is derived from one or another of those sources. It's my understanding that prior to the Open Group getting their grubby hands on the UNIX trademark you pretty much had to be a source licensee to use the name Unix, which was a privilege accorded to Digital, HP, SCO, Sun, and IBM. BSDi was always pretty careful to be called BSDi and not BSD UNIX, as I recall, even though it's based on BSD UNIX.
I think the strongest argument for Unix being mostly a set of behaviors and not a genetic descendance, however, is that there are clearly two things called Unix; BSD UNIX, and Unix System V. (And the various ancestors, of course.) Then, there's the name UNIX, which one pays for. In order to get it, however, one also has to mimic a certain set of behaviors.
In any case, you have to make some sort of decision about what Unix really is. If NeXTStep is Unix, then so is Mac OS X. Christ, they're practically the same thing, except the big joke is, NeXTStep ran on PCs. Ha ha, ain't that hilarious. The question of Linux being Unix or not is a lot muddier, certainly it is not Genetic Unix... or at least we hope it isn't or SCO could be partially right :) But where I'm going here is that Linux acts like Unix, it looks like Unix, people who use it are like any other Unix types (now that everyone uses Unix.) I'm not talking about Mac users who never touch the Unix side here, mind you. I know plenty of hardcore Unix types use it as well, and since Darwin is open source, you can do whatever you like to the Unix side of it. Or hell, just run it by itself.
Your argument about the non-standard kernel, well, that's the best one I could come up with myself. The non-standard filesystem layout doesn't mean anything, Unix filesystem layout has changed a lot over time. The non-standard API is rubbish, it has the standard ones, it just has additional ones. There's no law that says Unix can't be extended, it's been extended plenty over time. A non-standard windowing system? X doesn't make Unix. Unix is one thing, and the X Window System is another thing, which Unix just tends to come with all the time.
Returning to the question of whether or not a microkernel-based operating system can really be Unix, that is a toughie. As you may know, Mach handles processes, memory allocation, multitasking, et cetera. This is what really raises the question, isn't it? If it were just a HAL-style mini-microkernel like NT's, it would be less of a question I think.
But let's face it, most of FreeBSD is in there. Big chunks of the kernel presumably made it in as well. After all, there's lots of things that the kernel does besides process management and memory allocation. I think it's fair to say that it's Unix, it's just on top of a microkernel. Big deal. It also has a whole bunch of makeup dumped on top of it as well, but that doesn't make it any less the same old mom. Here's to Apple Pie, the USA, and Unix forever. Call it Unix, call it UNIX, call it a POSIX-Compliant Unix-workalike, I could give a shit. But let's face it, Mac OS X is Genetic Unix. You can't take that away from it, no matter how hard you try.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"