[FADCA] Re: Knoppix on HD

[Chuck Hast]

On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 07:42:40 -0500, Charles S Schuman
<k4gbb at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Chuck...
> I downloaded the ISO last week and fired it up Friday on the Floppy CD.
> Did you copy and run it from the HD? I see a HDrun file and the
> instructions on the FAQ, but haven't had time to try them.
> 
> Any hints or warnings?
> 

When you run the "live cd" which is what these systems on a CD are called.
it will bring up a full linux OS running off of the CD. Once you have it up and
running, then you can open a terminal, or you can go to a console screen
and issue the following command
knx install

That will start the HD installer that will install the system on your
HD. Just follow
the prompts and it will put the whole thing on your HD. (for the whole thing you
need about 2G, but you can install only those things you need, and if you can
use a command line you can forgo the GUI and save a lot more space. Also
do not install the international stuff, you will save a load there as
there is a lot
of stuff in german (unless you want to read german).

Once that is done you will want to use ax25-config to set up your ax25 stuff, do
the netrom and IP stuff also.

Then pull down the fpac packages and install them, go to the following
www.f6fbb.org/fpac
I am running fpac323 because there were no binaries in the 325 package and
I am still having problems getting the 325 to compile.

I wanted to get something up and running so I could see what all was involved.
Now that I know, I am going to have to learn how to do the scripts and
try to build
a installer that will install it all, we build a FPAC CD and get it
out to all out there
that want to move things to linux and get this done. Indeed you could have a
CD that looks for the config files on a floppy,CF card, or a USB CF
card, and never
even worry about a HD. but CD drives have a high failure rate, HD's
for all their
spinning are pretty hard critters. Besides they have got so cheap that
it is not worth
the time to worry about a live cd for the switch right now. I could
see where you might
want to have one as a backup in case your box went down, you just grab another
one and stick the Cd in there until you can get the HD setup.

Back to the install,
The following are your friends
AX25 How-to (all over the internet google for it,  you want the sept
2001 version
FPAC How-to (comes with the fpac packages0
FPAC List at f6fbb
     Ray, Bernard, JP and many others are of a great help, at times they may
     not get back to you as fast as you would like, but we all have a
life and as
     soon as someone can get to it they will answer. I have config
files that Ray
     has sent me. Bernarnd sent me a diff file to patch some of the
325 stuff which
     allowed me to build all but I think it was fpad.

The neat thing is that you can use it as the jump off point for
different protocols and
applications. Also it makes it a lot easier to link to other network
islands if there is
at least one switch in the island that has a internet connection, you
use AXIP to
link to the rest of the network (of course you need at least one
switch on the main
network that also has internet access, the more the merrier)

Also on the FPAC site there is a floppy version of the code that you
can burn and
runn on a floppy, it will give you a good idea of how the whole thing
is put together,
so it is worth it to pull it down and create a floppy to play with.

I did it like this,
1. Pulled the floppy down, looked at how it worked modified it with
call got rid of
    the awety keyboard (there is a file you just change the name to
and it does not
    load that keyboard)
2. Pulled down the Knoppix Cd and ran it, at first I just did the live
cd, of course unless
   you store your changes on something to where your live CD can get
it on the next
   start up, you will have to re-do everything (goo practice)
3. Got the AX25 stuff going to where I could make a call using the
call app in Linux
4. Got the driver for bpqkiss going, tested it out.
5. I burned a eprom for 6pack which looks similar to kiss but handles
the channel a
    WHOLE lot better, in did a config file for 6pack and left it there.
6. Once I was familiar with the AX25 stuff I started working on the
FPAC stuff. You do
    not need to do the ROSE stuff under AX25, FPAC will do it all for you.
    Follow the directions in the fpac how-to and you will soon have a
fpac switch on
    the air.