[Ham-Linux] Which Distro/Apps/Apps development software to use?

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

On Fri, 2009-02-13 at 17:54 -0700, Bill Anderson wrote:
> 
> 
> On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Dr. Gerald N. Johnson
> <geraldj at storm.weather.net> wrote:
>         On Wed, 2009-02-11 at 18:08 -0700, Bill Anderson wrote:
>         > With your configuration, you have plenty of memory and
>         plenty of disk.
>         > I agree with a previous comment that openSuse is an
>         excellent choice.
>         > The Debian-based distros also have a good size collection of
>         ham
>         > software. Fedora has finally decided to package a lot of ham
>         software.
>         > It looks like Fedora 11 is going to have one huge collection
>         of ham
>         > software. Debian is slow changing and Fedora is on steroids,
>         openSuse
>         > offers a good balance having a large collection of software
>         and a
>         > longer life cycle.
>         
>         On of the problems with the latest big distros is that they
>         follow the
>         Mudsoft line demanding the latest hardware and removing
>         support for
>         vintage hardware. While puppy and ubuntu may not support the
>         latest hardware,
>         but they make a point to work with older hardware and
>         sometimes that's an
>         advantage.
>         >
>         > Drivers are packed with the kernel, so newer hardware,
>         especially
>         > SATA, requires newer releases. Puppy Linux and DSL tend to
>         run a bit
>         > behind on the kernel curve, which can create issues with
>         hardware.
>         
>         Only if you have the latest in hardware. Its just the opposite
>         if your
>         hardware is experienced.
>         >
>         > Bill Anderson
>         > WW7BA
>         >
>         73, Jerry, K0CQ
> 
> I disagree with your conclusions. Except for Third-Party drivers, all
> drivers are part of the kernel source tree. Even drivers for ancient
> hardware. However, the out-of-the-box kernel does not compile every
> driver. These is true for all distributions of Linux, even Puppy Linux
> and Ubuntu.

Yet I fear those older drivers may not compile because the compiler has
become a whole lot more strict about source code syntax.
> 
> All Linux kernels derive from the vanilla kernel at kernel.org. Each
> distro may have its own modifications to the kernel. If those changes
> pass muster, they are integrated into the vanilla kernel. Radical
> changes, like systemtap, took years before the kernel team excepted
> the changes. When a distro team compiles the kernel for it distro,
> they determine the kernel configuration and which drivers are compiled
> and available.
> 
> I compile a new kernel about once a week for one distro or another to
> test new features. Some of the kernels are for a Micron that is in the
> ancient category. When you compile your own kernel, you determine its
> configuration. For example, the A.25 drivers may not be compiled in
> the standard kernel, but I add them. I take out drivers that I don't
> need. The kernel for the Micron is configured to minimize the memory
> footprint, and optimized for that particular processor.
> 
> You have given me an idea for my blogs. It is time to show how easy it
> is to build a kernel. Every distro is a little different, but that is
> no big deal. Also, I need to mention those drivers that are important
> to some ham radio software.

Perhaps a noble task, however, I'm not a great fan of compiling linux
kernal or applications, and that's why I didn't succeed in running Linux
until SUSE 6 came along and loaded for me. Far too often when I try to compile an
application, I fail because it needs to link in a certain version of a
dozen other applications or drivers which would be instantly available
had I an OC3 fiber, but I have a dial up internet connection that works
at 28K most of the time (one of the costs of living in the country away
from urban radio and audio noise) and when I find each of those needed
sources, it calls for another half dozen elements. That leads to the
same difficulties with portable software as windoze software did decades
ago with products needing and updating .dll without checking or caring
for backwards compatibility.

Maybe I'm an old fuddy duddy, but I rather prefer for the computer and
its OS to work FOR me, not me for it. I've been at this for longer than
Linus, my first Fortran course was in the fall of 1966. By 1975 I had
built the first computer for elementary school student use in Iowa. A
Z80 box that hasn't broken yet and some are working on getting it saved
in the Iowa Historical Museum. After that I did another for a weather
client where the Z80 addressed half a megabyte of ram with only 16 bits
of address. That one had 40 hours of down time in 18 years of 24/7
operation. Both those computers had no OS, just a system monitor that I
hand assembled many times to get past the manufacturer's bugs and to do
the software task assigned them. Somewhere along the way I built a CP/M
system (still here) where I had to write and assemble the BIOS to make
CP/M run. I don't want to do that any more. Especially for ham
applications. My work for the last 20 years has been software (in C) for
weather display and analysis (much of the products can be seen at
www.weather.net though my software only supplied the weather database
and the animated weather graphics  it didn't create the HTML) running in
OS/2. After working all day at that, its NOT relaxing to spend the
evening trying to compile ham software for linux.

For Y2K, I fixed DOS and OS/2 programs with only the executable, no
source code. So I DO know programming.

Back in the Z80 days, I didn't need an assembler, I could write object
code as fast as I could write source code, though I didn't figure
relative jumps in my head, but my trusty base 16 abacus took care of
those. The HP16 hadn't been invented yet. I hopefully have forgotten
those Z80 details but I fear that looking at Z80 assembler compiled code
would bring them back.

So I want working distros, not distros I have to make work starting with
old driver source that fails modern syntax requirements and that is
dependent on a particular version of the C compiler.
> 
> Bill Anderson
> WW7BA
> 
>