On 12/27/05, Erik Anderson <erikerik at gmail.com> wrote: > Unless I'm mistaken, both knoppix and Ubuntu are debian-based. If > that is the case, you should be able to start up knoppix, check the > /etc/apt.sources file and find the source that the Amateur Radio stuff > gets pulled from and then add that line to the apt.sources file in > Ubuntu. This should work, right? Please correct me if I'm wrong. If the platform libraries are compatible between Knoppix3.6 and the Ubuntu version you're going to use *and* the package / dependency names are the same, then it might work, but it would definitely be better to install packages that were designed to go together (Disclaimer: I have no experience with Knoppix installs, so I don't know how compatible their repositories are with stock Debian or Ubuntu). This issue is a big reason why Debian's package management was better than Red Hat's in the past -- All of the Debian packages are in one repository and are designed to work together, whereas Red Hat historically had an official repository with a very limited number of packages and a bunch of independent and scattered repositories that sometimes worked together and sometimes not. Note that Red Hat / Fedora is much better now since the 'extras' repository is now an official part of the project, so most packages go there instead of in independent repositories. (Please don't take this as a RedHat vs. Debian debate -- I think both are excellent distributions). Having said that, are you sure that the amateur radio stuff isn't available in Ubuntu? Have you uncommented the lines for the 'universe' repositories in your /etc/apt/sources.list? Because there appears to be quite a few programs in their 'hamradio' category: see http://packages.ubuntu.com/breezy/hamradio/ (link to breezy packages but the same appear to exist for Hoary if you really want to install that version). If those packages satisfy your needs, then it's simply a matter of uncommenting one or two lines in your sources.list file and updating your synaptic package list. > Oh, and don't be afraid of trying to install apps from their source > tarballs - at first glance it looks confusing, but most mature apps > come with very good documentation on how to best configure, compile, > and install. Package management does add quite a few benefits, so you should certainly install a package for your distro if it's available, but here's a little tip that might make you feel a little better about installing from source when necessary: checkinstall (http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/) is very helpful little program. Basically, instead of doing the ./configure - make - make install routine, do ./configure - make - checkinstall. Checkinstall will build the software into a .deb and install it for you. There's no dependency information or anything like that, so you don't get any of those benefits from it, but it does make it much easier to keep track of software you've manually installed and uninstall it if necessary using the package management tools you are already familiar with (synaptic, apt-get, dpkg, etc). I know that checkinstall is available in the Ubuntu repositories (maybe in unverse again), I don't know about knoppix. Hope that helps, Jonathon