[arm-allstar] Hamvoip V1.5 release

Tue Dec 20 03:50:55 EST 2016

Doug,

I respect your position (or lack of releasing in detail) your opinions on 
the various RF modes. It can be a political nightmare as well As a 
programmer of more than 35 years I appreciate the grand scale of your 
efforts!

I absolutely agree that the various modes are not in standing with the 
commercial world to some extent. I won't mention specific modes. We want our 
multi-site system to go to DMR but it has small acceptance although much 
better audio. Allstar still has the best. I've done a lot of online audio 
streaming using applications written for that expressed purpose and 
appreciate that Allstar was written to interface to the hardware and thus, 
superior audio.

We too want to upgrade an old Dell GX520 running Allstar/IRLP/EchoLink. The 
OS is outdated and in my opinion as a System Administrator, unsecure. We sit 
behind a hardware firewall but with all of the crap that can crash our web 
servers we wonder about any RF mode. I won't ask you to address specific 
remodeling of security measures so as not to give would-be hackers a head 
start.

YOU and the team are appreciated!

-----Original Message----- 
From: "Doug Crompton via arm-allstar"
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2016 8:11 AM
To: ARM Allstar
Cc: Doug Crompton
Subject: Re: [arm-allstar] Hamvoip V1.5 release

My personal opinion of any of the digital RF modes is very poor and I think
it adds little to Allstar. Allstar is a great VOIP system on its own with
lots of current and future capability. One of its key features is great
audio. Because of that some would say that even Echolink should be banned
but in most cases Echolink has significantly better audio than most of the
RF digital modes. In general we really have lowered our audio
communications quality in amateur radio. Allstar also has the very
significant feature of being open source. That is why all these
improvements can be made. With most all of the other systems what you get
is it. Take it or leave it and if a manufacturer or developer decides to
abandon it you are out of luck.

The main reason and desire for the IRLP connection is that many bridges to
IRLP still exist and are in general use on a daily basis. They all are on
old PC's and the users would like to be able to get rid of them and use a
low cost, low power consumption Pi instead. A better approach would be to
educate users of IRLP and other VOIP systems about the virtues of Allstar.
Many have joined our ranks but there will always be holdouts.

Connecting everything together has some virtues but it also has many
problems. It sounds good on paper but in actual use it leaves a lot to be
desired.

*73 Doug*

*WA3DSP*

*http://www.crompton.com/hamradio <http://www.crompton.com/hamradio>*

On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 3:44 AM, "R. Wayne via arm-allstar" <
arm-allstar at hamvoip.org> wrote:

> That is awesome!!! I am still using an old patched version and want to
> upgrade. We were going to put each on a separate Raspberry or Pi or
> whatever and into a controller port (we know that Allstar makes a good
> controller but too not everyone wants to write command line. No offense.)
> Our RC-210's just fine but will now have ports freed up. Of course we own
> IRLP. I love that people are working towards a common goal. But have you
> received feedback about how most DSTAR's don't want analog links? What
> about P25 and DMR? Fusion? I have them all.
>
> -----Original Message----- From: "Doug Crompton via arm-allstar"
> Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2016 11:08 PM
> To: ARM Allstar
> Cc: Doug Crompton
> Subject: Re: [arm-allstar] Hamvoip V1.5 release
>
> The new release will have downloadable packages (not part of the image) 
> for
> IRLP and DSTAR. Neither of these packages are completely tested and are
> going to require some in field testing. There will eventually be howto's
> written once the bugs are ironed out.
>
> LinuxRMS (winlink), Additional APRS tools, direwold, etc. will be included
> as binaries that will supply some additional capability for users that 
> need
> it outside of Allstar itself.
>
> Standard packages that would normally be included with a complete Linux
> release will be available in the repository. They will always be there for
> the kernel you are using so no worries about getting out of sync in the
> future.
>
>
>
> *73 Doug*
>
> *WA3DSP*
>
> *http://www.crompton.com/hamradio <http://www.crompton.com/hamradio>*
>
> On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 11:46 PM, "R. Wayne via arm-allstar" <
> arm-allstar at hamvoip.org> wrote:
>
> Your hard work is appreciated! I wonder if there has been a thawing as far
>> as mixing other "protocols" in the new release other than EchoLink?
>>
>> -----Original Message----- From: "Doug Crompton via arm-allstar"
>> Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2016 6:07 PM
>> To: ARM Allstar
>> Cc: Doug Crompton
>> Subject: [arm-allstar] Hamvoip V1.5 release
>>
>> Santa Claus is working hard and we are just about there with the version
>> 1.5 release. He is hoping for a Christmas release but you know how busy 
>> he
>> is then so it might be a New Year release. Later this week I will publish
>> the preliminary documentation. It is the first step on a significantly
>> different and much improved Allstar.  After writing the initial image
>> which
>> will be available at the hamvoip.org webpage downloads section, future
>> updates from the hamvoip.org will be done online.
>>
>> In the process of getting ready I would suggest acquiring a new SD card -
>> preferably Sandisk Ultra class 10 or better, 8G or 16G. Save your old 
>> card
>> and image until you are confident the new version works well for you. If
>> you have a problem it is just a matter of plugging the old card back in
>> and
>> returning to where you were. We do not expect this will happen but
>> especially in critical applications it is good to have a backup. Also
>> since
>> your old card has probably been in operation for awhile it is a good idea
>> to start with a new one. BTW the new downloaded compressed image will be
>> somewhat smaller than prior images. This is because we are not including
>> the source code with the image. If you have a need for it (most will not)
>> it can be downloaded as a package from the repository.
>>
>> Please DO NOT copy old config files from prior versions and other 
>> releases
>> to the new system. The rpt.conf file has changed significantly. It has
>> been
>> better organized and documented and new commands have been added. Take 
>> the
>> time to configure the files in place. Things like additional functions,
>> etc. can be cut and pasted from old files. Because this is now an in 
>> place
>> update-able image once configured the files will carry forward through
>> future updates so you should not have to do manual updating again unless
>> the file architecture is changed.
>>
>> So take a few minutes and document your current node(s) passwords,
>> configuration changes, etc. so you can use them for the new code.
>>
>> Not in the initial release but soon we will be transitioning to database
>> storage of configuration data. This will allow graphical update of
>> parameters and a much better user experience. This will not happen
>> overnight and initially it will be introduced in our new IOpipe code.
>>
>> As with any big change there will be some bumps and some things you will
>> have to get use to doing differently. Bear with us in this transition
>> period. We think it will be worth it!
>>
>> *73 Doug*
>>
>> *WA3DSP*
>>
>> *http://www.crompton.com/hamradio <http://www.crompton.com/hamradio>*
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>> arm-allstar mailing list
>> arm-allstar at hamvoip.org
>> http://lists.hamvoip.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/arm-allstar
>>
>> Visit the BBB and RPi2/3 web page - http://hamvoip.org
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>> arm-allstar mailing list
>> arm-allstar at hamvoip.org
>> http://lists.hamvoip.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/arm-allstar
>>
>> Visit the BBB and RPi2/3 web page - http://hamvoip.org
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>
> arm-allstar mailing list
> arm-allstar at hamvoip.org
> http://lists.hamvoip.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/arm-allstar
>
> Visit the BBB and RPi2/3 web page - http://hamvoip.org
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> arm-allstar mailing list
> arm-allstar at hamvoip.org
> http://lists.hamvoip.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/arm-allstar
>
> Visit the BBB and RPi2/3 web page - http://hamvoip.org
>
>
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