In fact, I think it will be better using this topic instead of sending you an email, at least for the moment. All this discussion could be interesting for the community.
This post will be long, but I think it's necessary in order to "place" the scene.
So... let's go with the beginning.
nota: when I say "we", except opposite mention, I use it for "we, sailors"
Another question: What is the voltage in a boat? 220-230 volts? So any laptop, tv etc used at home can plug in and work? And how many feet, meters these boats are?
This is the first interesting thing. We (I and my wife) are living on a small sailboat, 28 feet (8,5m). The vast majority of people who are using a laptop to navigate have "small" boats, e.g. between 20 and 40 feet. There are exceptions, but bigger boats are not in the same range of budget and they are mostly using specifics materials.
The voltage on boats is in the majority of cases 12V, like in a van (basically a boat is a van on water
). the problematic is the same. for laptop usage for example, we use 12-19V converters.
Today, there are lots of solutions in order to get rid of expensive and specific (aka "marine") materials for navigation purpose. For example, solutions with raspberries are the actual trend, see for example the great job of Sailoog with openplotter,
https://openmarine.net/openplotter
But, this need for the user to be a little bit "Mac Gyver", and if you want a good and operational system, money (board, screen, devices, integration,...)
For a small boat, this is a little bit complicated, and for me also lacks of portability like a laptop that you could disembark in a bar for example. Moreover, the cost of and old laptopausaurus is nothing in comparison and I will always prefer recycle an old laptop instead buying new things.
Today, 2 linux systems are presents for this purpose:
Navigatrix
http://www.navigatrix.net/, a lubuntu(yerk!) 32bits based system, but old, and poorly updated.
Xinutop
https://marinux.tuxfamily.org/ a backported Debian Jessie(yerk) based system, but with a lot of good ideas, and lots of interesting concepts.
Those 2 systems have drawbacks, the fact that they are not very up-to-date, but I mention them, like openplotter, because they can help to understand what are the needs.
BUT, when you're a Slackware-based system user, nothing, except adapting your existing system.
The basic needs are the following: a specialized GPS plotter with cartography, image managing to create personal charts, AIS detection, meteorology, multimedia and office work.
Also, do you use LibreOffice,pidgin, and all other programs included, on a boat? Because if you don't then iso size image it will be much smaller.
You can use LibreOffice to write a document but to print it, a printer have to be present on a boat.
Yes, all of the usual programs are needed, the laptop is also used to work from the boat, so you need to be able to send mails, edit documents, communicate, and so on. Even Gimp is used to re-calibrate images in order to for example transform satellites images in charts. The size of the iso image is not really a problem, today, USB sticks are mostly more than 16GB (in fact I found that it's nearly impossible to buy an USB with less capacity
)
Of course there is always things that are unnecessary, but in a first time, I don't see this question relevant for testing purpose.
I am sorry for the "naive" questions but i know nothing about boat equipment.
You don't have to, sailing is a mysterious world for most people, but the proportion of Linux users in the sailors' community is way bigger than the rest of population. When you're traveling on a boat, sometime on great distances, you need a reliable OS, and at the end you often end on Linux. And if you're like me and are using Slackware since the last century, you also want something rock solid and stable
And also a 64 bit openbox version will be enough or 32 bit also needed?
I think yes, in fact, the purpose is to be able to use every machine, even an old "given by someone" laptop if necessary, and also be able to use the Windows(double yerk!!) machine of a friend/senegalese cybercafe/every laptop/... as it would be mine.
The quick question: It will be the slackel openbox 7.3 list of packages with the addition list of extra packages needed on a boat?
If the answer is yes then a creation of a script which will exist on repos and the user after installing it and run it, could download and install the extra programs needed (which will exist in repos also), it will be the quick solution without to have to recreate a new iso for now. And this can be used in openbox, mate and slackel kde. And also it will be good for testing purposes before releasing a new iso.
And the answer is YES. I also think it's the way to go. As you say, it would also can be used on mate and KDE.
If in the end a specific iso is created, my opinion is that openbox is the WM that can offer the best results in terms of efficiency(energy consumption, stability and speed), and at this moment maybe putting out some packages in order to be even more efficient.
If a specific iso is released, I also think it would be great to keep the extra programs script maintained. In my head, one specific openbox iso and a script to "transform" the other slackel versions would be the best. Moreover, this script could also profit to Slackware and Salix users!
A list of the programs needed by someone to run them in a boat.
The nerve of the topic.
The vast majority have slackbuilds, if not, I will precise it.
So
-The first program is
Opencpn https://opencpn.org/ https://github.com/OpenCPN/OpenCPN https://launchpad.net/~opencpn/+archive/ubuntu/opencpn . This is the big part. Personnaly, I use the slackbuild, and, if a slackel package is released, maybe it's better to be based on the slackbuild version and not the mainstream (aka launchpad ppa or last release). The fact is sometimes the last releases are a little buggy and it's always better to have a full-functional program, even if it has missed one release. I've discuss this with Matt Dinslage (daedra) the opencpn slackbuild maintainer, and he is agree with this. For all the plugins, I don't know if they are necessary, apart for th oesenc-plugin (wich has also a slackbuild), I think they are not necessary and if someone want them, you could see that in time.
-
Gpsd is a very useful program
https://gpsd.gitlab.io/gpsd/, also in the slackbuilds, and as a dependency of opencpn, it's necessary.
-
Gpsbabel https://www.gpsbabel.org/
-
Muplex (no slackbuild)
https://marinux.tuxfamily.org/#MUPLEX
-
Xygrib (no slackbuild),
https://opengribs.org/en/xygrib for meteo purposes, can read openskiron's gribs
https://openskiron.org/he/
-
imgkap (no slackbuild)
http://dacust.com/inlandwaters/imgkap/ for cartography.
-
Qgis would also be useful, but not essential.
-
wvdial, that has a slackbuild, used to connect to a phone satellite modem.
-
TLP is for me a good way to manage energy, more "human usable" than laptop-mode-tools for noobs
Now the second list of programs, the radio part.
Today, we can use cheap dvb receivers, or a little more expensive SDR (Software defined radio) in order to receive all types of signals, including AIS via VHF and weatherfax via HF/marine USB. All those programs are in the slackbuilds except one.
the first necessary program in order to do that is
"rtl-sdr". It has to be installed first in order for the following programs to be able to use SDR.
Following the installation of rtl-sdr, it's also necessary to blacklist the DVB driver (aka rtl28xxu) in modprobe.d (
Code: Select all
echo 'blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu' | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-dvb_usb_rtl28xxu.conf
or something like that)
then the followings can be installed.
-
gnuradio and his extensions,
gr-osmosdr,
gr-iqbal
-
gqrx-sdr
-
fldigi
And, last but not least, the ultra necessary
rtl-ais, by dgiardini, simple and efficient
https://github.com/dgiardini/rtl-ais, the other AIS programs are heavy and not as good.
Very sorry for the novel, but I thought it was necessary. As you will see, a vast part of those projects and programs are europeans.
Thnak for your time, don't hesitate if you have any question. Of course, I will be totally avaiable for testing purpose and advices for the " marine and radio parts" of the things, because I don't think you need advices on the computing part.
Julien
