[Leaplist] Re: hamcation setup etc.

Tue Feb 5 12:08:58 EST 2008

On 2008-02-05, at 0001, Phil Barnett wrote:
>> also, i'd like to think we can set up a 20m station to show off PSK
>> and other digital modes, and it might be cool to set up an APRS
>> station as well. i remember they made us take down the antennas last
>> year- is there a way we can make arrangements to have the antennas up
>> this year?
>
> I don't have the time to do it. I'm certainly not against it, but  
> the band
> that works in the daytime is 20 meters, and if you remember last  
> year, the
> K1H special event station knocked us off the air with key clicks  
> across the
> entire band. Not much we can do about that.

that's right... ah well, it's nice to dream.

> I'm sorry to say that my efforts to create a ham radio ISO have  
> fallen upon
> the rocks. I meant to work on it last week and the weekend, but work  
> exploded
> and I spent days and night supporting that instead of having time to  
> work on
> the image.

what? where are your priorities, man? what did they do, PAY you to  
support their people instead of the ham radio linux stuff?

> With that said, I think any modern distribution or two will work.
>
> So how about this:
> 100 Kubuntu latest version.
> http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php
> kubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso is the one we want.

sounds like a job for a non-ham... like fuzzy?

> 100 Ham Puppy Linux
> http://sharon.esrac.ele.tue.nl/pub/linux/ham/pskmail/puppy/ham_pup-1.2.iso

is this the same "EMCpup" distro you found before?

	http://www.w1hkj.com/emcpup.html

or is there any difference? i know david billsbrough has a stack of  
CDs and is waiting to be told what to burn- maybe he should download  
both and try them, and see which one he thinks is better- not just for  
ham radio stuff, but with a decent set of "normal" programs as well. i  
would do it myself but i'm pretty much booked solid this week.

so let's do that- david, download both of them and try them, and  
whichever one you think is a better distro in terms of ham radio and  
"normal" programs, burn 100 of that.

> 50 Linux Mint.
> 4.0 Beta Main Edition (I'm pulling this down right now)
>
> 50 OpenDisk
> http://theopendisc.com

i've got 20 opendisc done already, i'll keep going for 50. that will  
leave me 50 blanks, which i plan to bring to the show with a burner  
and a collection of ISO files for other distros, so if somebody wants  
fedora or gnome-ubuntu or mandriva or whatever, i'll be able to burn  
them if they don't mind waiting a few minutes.

> I gotta say, that Linux Mint is a beautiful distribution. I'm more  
> pro RPM
> based stuff, but debian has really hit the big time with ubuntu and  
> friends
> pushing the envelope, so Linux Mint seems to be a dressed up  
> distribution.
> The one with Gnome is nice and I'm a KDE fan.
>
> I can burn the Linux Mint CD's.
>
> Who has the CD's?

i have 100, fuzzy has 100, and david billsbrough has 100. and fuzzy  
has all of the plastic mini-jewel cases. if you end up using your own  
blanks, i'm sure somebody will be able to trade them back to you, or  
LEAP can reimburse you- don't you know the president personally?

now that i think of it, i've already got the mint ISO... maybe i  
should burn 50 of those, and you can bring some blanks to burn  
"whatever people want"... i'll bring a USB disk with ISO files on it,  
so whoever wants to burn can copy the collection of ISO files to their  
own system and then burn "whatever" as well.

one thing that worries me, though, is having too many different  
choices on the table. if we're doing kubuntu as our "standard" linux  
distro, does it make sense to also do mint- especially a non-ham  
version?

here's an idea- last year, the end of the table where you had your  
radio set up was kinda like a "craftsman's corner"- it showed the  
software actually being used, at least for a while... maybe during the  
hamcation, you could start with the vanilla mint (sorry, not trying to  
mix flavours there) and walk through adding the various ham radio  
packages, removing unwanted "other" stuff, and re-mastering... and  
trade the finished CD for a $5 donation, just like any other distro.

the guys who tend to hang around the table will probably like the idea  
of being able to pick and choose their own packages, and want to grab  
a mint CD (either before or after your changes) and take it home to  
customize it themselves- and who knows, maybe they'll start doing the  
whole "customizing" process themselves. obviously that machine will  
need a burner- i'll bring a compaq bookpc with a burner, and if this  
is what it gets used for, so be it.

and obviously, anybody else who plans to be there all three days (or  
even just one or two days), if you can put together a system that we  
can put on the table and let people play with, PLEASE let us know, and  
then bring it with you- if you're bringing stuff for the booth,  
ideally we'd like to have it friday morning (it all starts friday at  
noon) but if you won't be there until saturday, that'll work too. it  
doesn't need to be anything fancy, although it would be nice if it has  
enough RAM to be happy running a live cd.

we should also go by the church where we do the installfests, and grab  
the boxes with our switches, cables, wireless routers, and so forth...  
we won't know for sure exactly what we'll need until we get there, and  
having those boxes under the table will give us a place for the  
cashbox, extra CDs, or whatever else we need to store "out of sight".

the other thing we need is a machine with one of those high-speed  
internet cards from verizon or somebody, from which we can get  
internet access. tom parker brought a pre-made linux router machine  
with one of these in years past, hopefully he can do so again- and if  
not, i know that several other people probably have the wireless cards  
as well, and can probably cobble together a linux router machine (once  
you can get the linux box itself online via the card, expanding it  
into a NAT router consists of a few "iptables" commands.) i think it  
would be nice to have internet access on-site, so if nothing else we  
can look up answers to peoples' questions, or just let them play with  
firefox on linux.

and while it's too late for this year, i think next year we need to  
start planning the hamcation stuff earlier- like sometime in november.  
i don't think we need to "form a committee", we probably just need one  
loud-mouthed SOB like myself to start talking about it on the list. i  
plan to do this in november (just wrote it on my calendar.)

--------------------------------------------------------
| John M. Simpson  --  KG4ZOW  --  Programmer At Large |
| http://www.jms1.net/                 <jms1 at jms1.net> |
--------------------------------------------------------
|   Hope for America  --  http://www.ronpaul2008.com/  |
--------------------------------------------------------

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