[FADCA] RE: [Fpac] Re: Internet/FBB/LINUX/FPAC

Fri, 1 Mar 2002 14:20:22 -0500

My View

Windows is like radio shack it is handy, but when you want to
get down to real nitty gritty you need a lot more than radio
shack.

Windows does not support AX.25 in the kernel, LINUX does.
Windows does not support any of the common networking protocols
  LINUX supports them all.
Our network in this state is built on FPAC, we can migrate every
DOS FPAC site to FPAC LINUX and gain the ability to use IP,NETROM and
several other protocols in the deal. We can not do that with Windows.

How does WinLink support X.121 type routing? FBB and TNOS both support
it, and if you are running them in a LINUX box you can actualy have
a X.121 address for the device in question. That along with IP and the
other protocols.

The limited support for IP does not bode well for many of the narrow
band width links that we have throughout the state, it is better to
segment it above the radio network level and hand off smaller packets
to the RF network, and reconstruct the large IP packets on the far
end, less over head over those narrow band links, this of course provided
that your application supports use of the 'M' bit at the link level.

For LINUX there is source code for everything, so things can
be fixed or modified if so needed.

Viruses are almost non-existant, so there is not the need to constantly
patch and update protection, and hacking is made so much more difficult
by the security built into LINUX since it is the same as that of a well
built UNIX system.

Windows has only one window manager, WINDOWS, LINUX has a large number of
them, the really simple ones are very good for this appllication, you do
not want your emergency operators trying to access other things on the
system
so you can setup a window manager that only has those tools the user is
supposed to have access to. That means you can have a screen that only has
the icons needed to do the job.

It is good that we test and use the Windows product, but making it the
only one just gets us into the mess that all the rest of the world is in,
with M$. We have the tools in LINUX to do all of this too, and there is
a lot of it being done, several of the LINUX list attest to this.

I am setting here in a server room at my place of work and see every day
the issues of a "monoculture computer system". Problems that would have been
fixed long ago continue to plague us because we are a "windows shop" believe
me our management is looking at Linux real seriously in order to cut cost
and reduce the impact of virus/hacker type problems. The first things to go
will be the servers, and firewall, then we will start looking at the desktop
and laptop areas. Some of these will remain Windows but we are seriously
looking at what can be moved to Linux in order to reduce cost.

My best comparison of Windows is to a car with the hood welded shut, Linux
is open and all documented so you can follow things as they happen, to a
much greater depth, logging is excellent whereas in windows it is almost
non-existant, that I saw here the other day very clearly while our guys who
were trying to fix a machine looked at logs and could find nothing as it did
not log a thing. They ended up calling M$ with a credit card in hand to get
it fixed.

If you want a totally Outlook type of operation you can use Evolution under
LINUX and get all of the same sort of services that you get with Outlook
without the MS virus issues associated with Outlook. Evolution talks to the
mail service through the IP stack which handles the AX.25 issues also,
including
which every protocol is common to your area.

One other comment, a lot of those last miles may not be 802.11 links so you
need to keep that in mind at all times, and even when they are you need a
fall back. That 802.11 link may not be there after a disaster particularly
the type we are most associated with, wind has a nasty way of re-aiming
parabolas for you.

Just my $0.02 worth.

-----Original Message-----
From: bud Thompson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 08:03 PM
To: Bill Guthrie; Jimmy Morrell; [email protected]; Larry W Weaver;
[email protected]; [email protected]; Russell Oder N4KOX
Cc: [email protected]; Rick KN6KB; [email protected];
[email protected]
Subject: [Fpac] Re: Internet/FBB/LINUX/FPAC

Deltona, FL
Tuesday Feb 26 1800EST

I've waited for a while to respond ....
---------------------------------------------SNIP------------------

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