[chirp_users] CHIRP LiveUSB [was: New chirp-next build]

[Stuart Longland VK4MSL]

On Tue, 3 Jan 2023 09:00:20 -0600
Ken Hansen <ken at n2vip.org> wrote:

> Shipping a complete Ubuntu installation in a VM just to have CHIRP
> pre-installed seems a bit of over-kill. Typically a single line
> command would install CHIRP, wouldn't it?
> 
> CHIRP is 20-40 megabytes, a full GUI install of Ubuntu is measured in
> gigabytes.

There's other distributions aside from Ubuntu.  AlpineLinux is tiny for
example.  Gentoo also would let you build "just what you need" into a
LiveCD.  You usually don't need the full Gnome 3 desktop that Ubuntu
typically ships, you need just enough to launch CHIRP and make it
usable.

Perhaps add to this some hotplug USB storage smarts to enable
auto-mounting of removable storage for those not used to bringing up a
command line and manually mounting volumes.  It'd still be hundreds of
MiB, but likely significantly below 1GiB.

Another approach would be a Live environment that bundled CHIRP along
with other amateur radio software (e.g. SDR tools, digital modes, etc)
which might increase the size a little, but might then allow the
environment to do more than just "program radios".

I did make a (command-line-only) LiveCD once using Gentoo's catalyst
tool, and while I didn't get UEFI booting working, I did get a useful
LiveCD that booted and contained tools sufficient for doing system
rescue work.  Maybe I should re-visit that.

Regards,
-- 
Stuart Longland (aka Redhatter, VK4MSL)

I haven't lost my mind...
  ...it's backed up on a tape somewhere.