[Xastir] Is there any one version of Linux better than another for xastir ?

[Curt, WE7U]

On Thu, 5 Aug 2010, Jerry Dunmire wrote:

> I am running ham apps on on both a Dell desktop and a D600 laptop.

I should have mentioned that I'm running kernel ax.25, ham apps like
WSPR and Fldigi via a USB SignalLink, and just configured Soundmodem
again 'cuz I want to play with q15x25 mode a bit.

My TNC won't come out of KISS mode.  Ever.  It's a TNC-X.


> My biggest problem these days is the sound interface, alsa, pulse,
> jack, and the others that seem to come up. I'm pretty happy with the
> default Ubuntu choice in 10.04 (pulse), particularly after I installed
> some of the pulse tools.

I'm still trying to figure out the sound system.  Sometimes I bring
up a mixer and it loads pulseaudio, but otherwise I'm not running
it.  WSPR seems to work with the OSS or ALSA devices, but I've heard
OSS is old now (I remember when it was the brand-new thing!) so I'm
using the ALSA names I think.  Then there PortAudio (I guess I'm
using that in Fldigi?) and PulseAudio and Jack.

What I'd like is things to stop messing with my mixer volume for my
2nd soundcard (USB SignaLink), and for everything to be able to play
together using one audio system.  Does such a creature exist yet?
It doesn't appear that I can bring up WSPR and Fldigi on the same
soundcard at the same time (so I can select CW filter and the proper
IF shift for the 1500 Hz area WSPR wants), plus WSPR has far fewer
selections for sound drivers than Fldigi has.

Any Linux sound system experts out there?


> One other note, a friend in the neighborhood has a preference for
> Centos, but he has been having a bear of a time getting the ham apps
> to work.

I run CentOS on my servers at work.  In my estimation that's where
it is most comfortable.  It's not designed to be a bleeding edge
distro but a very reliable server-oriented distro.  They maintain
support for each version for seven years, just like Red Hat with
their RHEL (which CentOS is derived from and nearly and exact copy
of).  I agree, don't consider CentOS for your main desktop.

-- 
Curt, WE7U.                         <http://www.eskimo.com/~archer>
    APRS:  Where it's at!                    <http://www.xastir.org>
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