Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Google Summer of Code / ham radio

[Tom Rondeau]

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 3:09 PM, Daniel Pocock <address@hidden> wrote:

On 08/03/16 20:52, Johnathan Corgan wrote:

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:06 AM, Daniel Pocock <address@hidden> wrote:

 

Debian and GNU Radio are both confirmed in GSoC this year, is there
interest in advertising this idea[1] for converting the GNU Radio live
DVD into a Debian Live project, merging with the Debian Ham CD?

​The GNU Radio Live SDR environment builder is completely scripted, and designed to allow easy customization:

https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio-livesdr

For simple binary package installations, you can add a file with a list of packages here:

https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio-livesdr/tree/livesdr/config/install-pkgs.d

To add additional PyBOMBS (1.0) based GNU Radio OOT modules, you can modify:

https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio-livesdr/blob/livesdr/config/pybombs.d/install.conf

The conversion to using PyBOMBS 2.0​ is in progress.

So it would be straightforward to create a long-lived branch that focuses on ham radio specific content.

The Debian Ham Blend produces both a live CD/DVD and also a collection of packages that people can conveniently install as part of a normal Debian system on their HDD:

   https://www.debian.org/blends/hamradio/

Many of the things in the Blend are not specific to ham radio though.  e.g you can use the gpredict utility to track any type of satellite.  Browse the list of metapackages to see what I mean:
https://www.debian.org/blends/hamradio/get/metapackages

The benefit of adapting things from the GNU Radio live SDR environment into the Debian Ham Blend is that it would involve more people in the long term, as you get the experience of the Debian Ham team, the Debian Live maintainers and a lot of other Debian resources too.

Parts of this task, such as making a ready-to-run transceiver, would not only be for use in the live environment, they would be for users on any platform.

I'm not suggesting that the current Live SDR solution is broken, rather, a combined solution may be stronger in the long term.

Regards,

Daniel

Hi Daniel,

I think this is an interesting project, and I like the idea of getting students excited about radio through some of these harder challenges in the amateur space. Yet looking through your ideas here, I think this project mostly belongs in the Debian space. We're going to be keeping our model and development method behind the GNU Radio LiveDVD because it very nicely serves exactly our purpose. It's designed to get people up and developing on GNU Radio quickly. This is a much different mission than providing an OS with a known set of end user applications. That's what you're going for and that's a fantastic, but separate, service.

Tom