Recently I came across the Youtube channel of KM4ACK and the stuff that Jason is doing with a Raspberry Pi immediately intrigued me. I purchased my first RPi in 2018 and quickly turned it into a server running Pi-Hole for my home network. Seeing as my day job is focused on Linux servers this was a natural way for me to utilize the new low powered computer and fit it into my home network in a very useful way.
But what really got me interested in using Linux on the desktop was that WSJT-X is available for non-Windows OSes. In my personal life I am a MacOS/iOS user and while I did try WSJT-X on my Mac at one point, I continued to use Windows for my radio activities. The videos by KM4ACK quickly got me to thinking, how could I try Linux quickly in my shack?
So I dug out the Dell laptop that I setup for portable operations use, swapped out the SSD with Windows for another smaller SSD and proceeded to install Ubuntu 18.04. Now I am working on finding and installing software to try out. I immediately installed the latest WSJT-X and JS8Call packages, both of which worked without a hitch. Getting my FT-857 working with the RT Systems cable for CAT control took some work, but is is now working quite well.
As I work through getting software and hardware configured and working together I’ll be making notes on the trickier parts and posting them to a section here on my website under the Linux page. Maybe this will be useful for someone in the future and least for myself I’ll have some record of how I did things if I have to redo them.
