[nos-bbs] Why JNOS?

[Bill V WA7NWP]

My reply below:

Bill

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Bill V WA7NWP <wa7nwp at gmail.com> wrote:
> An interesting query on the 44net list...    I know my reasons but it
> would be interesting to hear from those others on here still using
> JNOS:
>
> 73
> Bill - WA7NWP
>
> ----
> Is the main reason that people are still running//supporting/using
> NOS/JNOS etc. for 44net and packet radio application mostly one of
> legacy?  When one has An OS that can and does provide all the network
> level connectivity and routing functions as well as various protocols
> for chat, mail, news, messaging and general communication one could
> host and run anything.  Why NOS/JNOS?
>
> AF6EP
>



Why NOS?

Lots of nostelgia.  It's a visit back to the good old days of packet
radio and TCP on AX25.

NOS is manageable and open.  It's not hard to browse the source to
find where something is done and then change it if so desired.

NOS is Educational - it's easy to see what's happening as the
connections progress.

It's a VM - before VM's were cool.   *NOS allows setting up a nearly
independent virtual machine and can be cleanly removed or moved to a
different system with minimal effort.

It's the Linux swiss army knife of packet programs.  It exchanges
data/messages with almost all other amateur Packet Radio program.  It
can gateway between the various Email and Packet formats.  We can do
this now with BPQ32 on windows but I don't know of anything so feature
rich in the NIX world.

It runs on a HPLX95...  How's that for a low power portable TCP over
AX25 system?

It gives essentially all the WL2K functionality - in 640K DOS.  :-)


Why NOT NOS?

I wouldn't use NOS for a basic IP/AX25 packet routing solution...   A
simple nix box or upgraded router with the ax25 stack would do that.

I wouldn't use NOS for a home packet AX25 packet stack/router - BPQ32
has surpassed what JNOS or even Linux can do here.

I wouldn't use NOS for a packet client - Outpost PM does that.

I wouldn't recommend NOS for a new user.  It's a true geek experience.


I'm sure I'll think of more but that's enough for now...

73
Bill - WA7NWP

PS.  I got a good start on getting NOS going, once again, last night.
It just felt good to relive some of those hundreds of hours doing the
JNOS configuration dance.