This puts in the "boilerplate" of the project and the initial readme file.

Except for the Readme.md file and the new directory structure, the rest of the files are from the existing d-rats project.

Next I plan to work on the getting "hello-world" type projects using
the various graphics packages in the outline. I will probably be only testing that phase on one Windows distribution and one Linux distribution, so will need other testers to get better coverage.

That will help flush out what is needed for setting up a local development environment.

73,
-John
wb8tyw

On 1/10/2025 1:02 PM, Debbie Fligor via groups.io wrote:

I’ll second the request to continue to support other OSes. I hope
to eventually have enough spare time to try and back port a linux
version to Mac (since that’s all I have).

There are several Mac users on this list that are running the new python3 version and can help you out with details.

I have stopped creating pip installable tarballs in favor of just doing a git clone of the project, and then running it from there.

lzhuf has to be downloaded and built from the lzhuf project for Mac, as I do not have a way to build it myself and post the binaries in the files section of this forum. That is needed only if you want to use winlink.

73
-John
wb8tyw

I’ll second the request to continue to support other OSes. I hope to eventually have enough spare time to try and back port a linux version to Mac (since that’s all I have). So I am in favor of using anything that is cross platform, but has stable enough toolkit to be practical.

Since I’ve never even had time to look at the state of the current linux version, I won’t even say it’s my 2 cents, more like my 1/2 cent worth.

73,
-debbie, N9DN

On 1/10/2025 3:44 AM, David Ranch via groups.io wrote:

I can appreciate the need to refactor the code though abandoning
Linux is a bad idea IMHO.

I never posted anything about abandoning Linux, the 3 GUI tool kits that I am going to try are available on Linux, Windows and MacOS.

* Tkinter - built into python
* WxPython - Seems to be the most used of the choices - best supported.
* Kivy - Not seeing a lot of activity, but supports Android and IOS.

I also totally get the frustration on the

ever changing UI toolkits but maybe consider using FLTK like what
Fldigi uses to support Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. on
multiple architectures like x86, ARM, etc.

Just looked at FLTK. It is more complex to install than the options I am currently looking at because it requires first building it on the Windows platform. That makes creating an installable package on Microsoft Windows much harder.

If someone wants to do the work for FLTK support, I don't have any objections of adding it to the mix.

My first significant goal is to create hello-world type programs with each of the GUI tool kits.

The next significant goal is to create Windows and Linux installable packages of the hello-world type programs.

And while doing this, document how others can setup their own development and test environments.

Regards,
-John

On 1/8/2025 10:49 PM, Steve Stroh via groups.io wrote:

This is a cool development, and I’m mentioning it in this week’s issue of
Zero Retries newsletter.

Thanks.

It is going to take a while as I plan to try to document it as a teaching project as I go to help people to contribute. There is also a lot of stuff that I need to learn.

Volunteer testers will be needed for testing devices that I do not have and really will need some help keeping the wiki at up to date.

As I mention in Zero Retries, I hope that DRATS2 can implement the “big
flip” necessary to be able to use DV Fast Data mode in the Icom D-Star
radios that include that mode.

As I understand it, and I could be very wrong, the Fast Data mode is similar to an Ethernet bridge connected to the local network that the computer is on and can be configured for tcp/ip routed over that bridge.

In that case, a d-rats repeater would treat it as any other tcp/ip connection, so existing e-rats clients could connect to a d-rats repeater that is accessible over that bridged network.

Regards,
-John

I have just created a new repository for rewrite of D-Rats.

I think this re-write is needed for several reasons.

1. Most of D-rats users are using Microsoft Windows and the use of GTK+ makes it hard to provide an easy to install package.

2. GTK+ is continuing to make incompatible changes with new versions making it harder make enhancements. The Glade editor for designing GTK+ layouts actually making things harder as it does not seem to be keeping up with GTK.

3. The config subsystem needs a rewrite to fix existing problems and requested features, the existing code structure makes that very difficult.

Tracking Wiki for this new project.



It may be a while before I get something ready for testing, and most of those tests will be of the "hello world" type packages at first just to make sure that everything can install and run.



As this will be being brought up in sections, hopefully it will help someone learn programming and packaging processes.

Regards,
-John
wb8tyw

On 9/16/2024 12:56 PM, Jack Spitznagel (KD4IZ) wrote:
<snip>

Since I last used the system there is now a version of Python 3 for 64 bit Win 11 that may or may not have the needed support.

It still does not the last time I checked and it does not appear that anyone maintaining the needed packages is doing anything to make them run on Microsoft Windows, so I do not expect that to change anytime soon.

(maybe still), a separate piece of the code for LZHUF was required that was critical for certain functions of D-RATS to run. I don't know if that is still the case.

Lzhuf is in is own repository separated from d-rats as it needs to be built for the specific platform. Prebuilt lzhuf packages for some Debian based distributions including Raspbian and also Microsoft Windows distributions. I have not had time to working out building RPM packages for Lzhuf yet.

LZHUF is needed for Winlink communications. Somehow Winlink continued to use LZHUF compression after the patent holder for LZHUF started requiring paid licenses for using LZHUF and suing anyone they found distributing LZHUF compression that did not pay.

As a result, all the Linux distros removed lzhuf compression from their packages.

Because of that, there are no independent suppliers of LZHUF compression libraries.

But now the patents have expired on LZHUF world wide, it is now legal for LZHUF compression to be used with out a paid patent license. And at least in the U.S. it is past the statute of limitations for suing anyone that used it with out a license before the patent expired.

The major Linux distros may not be interested in providing a full feature lzhuf package again since because of past lawsuits, there no longer is much use of lzhuf.

(The old version did not need the interpreter because it had been compiled to work in Windows).

The old version on windows was created independently of Dan Smith's efforts by a windows programmer that bundled the Python 2 package and a pre-built GTK2 package built for windows.

It is python, and you can actually edit it in place and try to maintain it. But the tools needed to recreate the distribution package are gone.

Currently the cross platform projects that are python based with a single package installer are actually installing the Msys2 environment with a shortcut to launch the application.

I have not done that with D-Rats simply because not have time to reverse engineer what the others have done, and the Msys2 does not have documentation for that type of deployment.

The other problem is that every time there is a CVE issued against a component in Msys2, a complete new D-Rats package would have to be built and everyone must upgrade to get it. These other projects have a pool of developers and do nightly package builds.

If you have an old computer that used to run Windows XP or later, it can probably have Anti-X Linux installed on it instead, and D-Rats 0.40 runs very well on Anti-X Linux even on the older hardware.

73,
-John

On 9/17/2024 7:35 AM, Daryl Stout wrote:

Jack,
The "fix" was so simple, and these are the ones that can cause a lot
of aggravation, and the most problems. It's like having one line off
in some programming code, that will mess everything up.
<snip>
I looked at the path, and it hit me...the "username" under C:\Users\username (usually only 5 characters) was DIFFERENT. Next, I
took a look at the configuration file from the D-Rats setup on the
Windows 10 32-bit machine, and sure enough...that was the issue!!

Yes, that issue has been reported here before. If you use the Microsoft default for Windows 10/11 and create your default login account to use a Microsoft account, it creates a different directory structure.

And that is fixed in the current 0.40 D-Rats, the problem was that D-Rats was assuming that directories in the config file already existed and failing if they are missing.

For 0.40 the default is still the older directory structure. I do not want my main PC account to be tied to a Microsoft account, so I do not have any systems with that configuration to test.

One very important thing with Windows to avoid getting your box turned into a brick is to make sure that you have at least two accounts.

A Non-privileged account for your normal use, and also an administrator account. The administrator account should only used for maintenance and repair.

There is a nasty virus that I have seen get by several big name antivirus scanners that appears to be delivered somehow from legitimate websites, assuming from banner advertisement.

When it hits, you may or may not see a DOS box pop up, but the next thing you see is an extortion page and the mouse/keyboard no longer work.

The free Malware Bytes scanner can repair it, but you need to run it from a different account.

If you normally use a computer from an Administrator account, and one of these viruses gets in, you will need to reformat the drive and you may need to have the firmware re-flashed on the BIOS.

I went into the Mode Overview file (available at the hyperlink off of
my QRZ bio), and added that tidbit of info. So, I've got D-Rats 0.39
working on the Windows 11 setup.

And if you hook up a radio on a USB serial port, you will eventually find that it will drop received packets. This tends to show up more newer faster computers. That is just one of the many fixes you are missing by staying with the 0.39.

Now, if I could just keep power and internet during my ham radio nets.

I use a number of UPS systems on all networking and desktop computers.

73,
-John
wb8tyw

开云体育

Hi Daryl,

It has been a while! The original work was written in older versions of Python 2 with libraries that are no longer supported. There has been an enormous amount of work needed and much has been done by John Malmberg, WB8TYW and Maurizio Andreotti IZ2LXI .?

While in your "absence", D-RATS has undergone some major changes - much of the v0.4 development code was written to run under Msys2 or MobaXterm (emulation application) in the Python 3 environment (IIRC) so that the primary maintainers could continue work on fixing the Python code and making things current.

Here is a quote from the github repository which has me a bit confused on a brief reading. It is from :

Microsoft Windows

The installation is now primarily done from inside the MobaXterm application using.

This generally requires installing the msys2 package from , which is what is currently used for testing.

Other alternatives Windows Subsystem for Linux with a Linux installed or Cygwin . At the present time those are not being tested. Windows Subsystem for linux may have issues accessing serial devices.

Since I last used the system there is now a version of Python 3 for 64 bit Win 11 that may or may not have the needed support. Also for a while (maybe still), a separate piece of the code for LZHUF was required that was critical for certain functions of D-RATS to run. I don't know if that is still the case. So the Python interpreter plus the LZHUF issue maybe where your attempt to install D-RATS went south. (The old version did not need the interpreter because it had been compiled to work in Windows).

I had been loading and testing John's new versions, then got derailed by life demands. The old versions (v3) still will load and run OK on my old 2015 Dell Windows 10 based desktop (which just has been replaced by a Win 11 box). I have yet to install any version of Python or D-RATS on the new computer, so you and I will likely go on this journey together.?

I do think I have the new code running on my Win 11 laptop - but it has been a while since I did much with it.

If I have the time (has been scarce lately) to install, I will. I will share with you what the "secret sauce" steps that I discover on the way. Hope that makes it easier.

Jack - KD4IZ

I previously was running D-Rats 0.3.9 under Windows 10 32-bit on a desktop and Windows 11 64-bit on a Lenovo Laptop...and it still works on the desktop computer. I had to stop using the Lenovo Laptop, as the screen started going bad...but I also received an early Christmas/birthday present, with a new Windows 11 Pro Desktop, with 16 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of hard drive space...which has made doing much of my ham radio nets much easier, with the SharkRF OpenSpot 4 Pro.

?

However, I tried to get D-Rats 0.3.9 to work on the new computer, and it would not. Is there an additional file I need to download to make it work?? I took a look at D-Rats 0.4.2, but I wasn't sure what I needed to do to activate it, or get it working.

?

Any help would be appreciated.

?

Daryl, N5VLZ

?

On 8/27/2024 6:47 PM, John Primo wrote:

I am downloaded Drats it downloads fine but when i go to open the
program I get an error message, when i go to click ignore, I still
cant get drats to run

Downloaded from where?

I have stopped attempting to build python eggs for releases for now as they are a bit of effort to maintain, and it is simpler to maintain a checkout of the D-rats repository on a system setup with the D-rats dependencies, and we do not have enough active volunteers create and test packages.

What installation procedure did you use?

D-Rats is a Linux Python program that requires a Linux emulation environment in Microsoft Windows.

The only such known environments are Msys2, Cygwin, and MobaXterm (Cygwin). Of these MobaXterm seems to be the easiest to maintain.

Microsoft Windows does not provide a complete Python runtime environment, and the GTK project required by D-Rats does not provide a working build procedure for building it using Microsoft Compilers.

This is the current installation procedure on Microsoft Windows:



Currently this installation procedure appears to work from Microsoft Windows 7 and later versions, although support for versions of Microsoft Windows earlier than Windows-10 is being very rapidly dropped by the libraries that D-Rats depends on for running.

Note that the 0.3.9 and older version of D-rats are not getting any bug fixes and has a known bug in that it will drop some messages received over the radio. That bug may show up more on newer faster computers.

The "Default" installation of Microsoft Windows 10/11 now tries really hard to get you to create a Microsoft account which sets up your user directory differently than what older versions of D-Rats expects so on those systems, Older D-Rats will fail to start.

I am showing that as fixed in the current 0.40 repository.


Until we get a volunteer that can come up with a better Windows installation package than installing and running from inside MobaXterm, that is what we have.

73,
-John
wb8tyw@...

开云体育

Is there a folder named ‘D-RATS Shared’ on you desktop??