Skywave Linux 4.2 is Released

With great satisfaction, I report to you you that Skywave Linux version 4.2 is released and on the wires. It is available here on SourceForge and via bit torrent (links posted on the Skywave Linux website). This newest release brings a bit of rework to be more user friendly, efficient, and fix a number of small annoyances.

Most noticeable is the move away from drivers obtained from the Ubuntu and Debian repositories. Skywave Linux now gets SoapySDR, the hardware drivers, and numerous small utilities from git repositories. The directory /usr/local/src is packed with fresh source code from cloned repos. Bash scripts there are used to manage updates, where you can simply run a script and it will freshen the local source, compile the binaries, and install them. Here are some other changes:

• upgraded Xanmod kernel 5.15.14-rt27-xanmod1
• default screen resolution 1920 x 1080
• removed LightDM (now boot directly to the desktop)
• i3wm "master and stack" tiling window layout
• Configured fzf and fzf plugin for Neovim through Telescope and Treesitter
• Neovim more deeply integrated through Language Server Pprotocol; fewer plugins for reduced latency
• LinHPSDR removed and replaced with SDR++ (SDRPlusPlus)
• Added SDR++ (SDRplusplus) working with devices through SoapySDR
• OBS Studio replaces Simplescreenrecorder
• Dump1090, the AIS monitor, and other small utilities interfaced through terminal and graphically through Rofi / Dmenu
• New RTLSDR bookmarks
• Revamped internet radio streamer
• Updated SSH tunneling (sshuttle); more stable behavior

All in all, Skywave Linux is a bit heavier, but quite a bit more powerful as a Linux system. It has worked well for a number of monitoring, writing, and content creation tasks which involve radio in one way or another. It is a joy for writing Bash, Python, and HTML code. All while running my local SDR to monitor the bands. I hope it helps you access interesting signals and do other good work.

Cheers,
P.C. / Skywave Linux