Enabling Ubuntu Bash shell on Windows 10 with the Anniversary update

I already have the Anniversary Update on my Windows 10 install, and I needed to ssh into one of my Raspberry Pis. I normally do this from my Mac, but since I’m in Windows 10 working on something, I thought this would be a great opportunity to install the new Ubuntu Bash support and then I can ssh from there right? (I could just install Putty, but then I wouldn’t have a reason to check out the Ubuntu Bash support, right?)

First attempt following instructions here, the bash windows opened and closed quick, too quick to read whether there was an error or not.

Second attempt, from a Command Prompt, entering bash, I got this:

Ok, to enable Developer Mode, into Settings, and click the radio button under ‘Use Developer Features’:

Then I got this error:

Hmm. Not very helpful. Clicking on Learn More opened a browser to a help page, but it didn’t load – I’d reconfigured my ip address to a static address on a local network for testing, and I didn’t have internet access. 0x80004005 probably could be a little more helpful, but enabling DHCP to get an internet connection and then tried selecting the Developer Mode option again, it downloaded, said ‘Some features may not be available until your PC is rebooted’. Rebooted, ran bash from Command Prompt, and now it prompted to download the Ubuntu Bash support. Why it couldn’t have done this already is beyond me, and I’ve already rebooted once, but answering ‘y’ it starts downloading:

After it completes you create a unix user and then you’re all set, and it even has ssh included.

Capturing the KISS pseudo terminal /dev/pts/x value from Direwolf

If you startup Direwolf with a KISS pseudo terminal for connecting another KISS packet app through Direwolf, you probably also need to run kissattach and mkiss to attach to the pseudo terminal. You can do this manually, but after doing this a few times, I put together this script to grep for the returned /dev/pts/x and then execute the kissattach with this value:

iPhone 7 – where’s the innovation?

The iPhone 7 is probably going to be noticed more for what Apple has removed, rather than the faster processor and improved dual lens zoom camera, since this is the first iPhone without a headphone jack.

Apple is notable for removing features on their new products though – laptops and desktops (iMac) with no floppy drive, and then later, no optical drive (MacBook Air).

PCMagazine added this perfect statement:

People who want iPhones don’t want them because of the spec sheets. They want them because of iOS, third-party iOS apps, Apple’s service and support network, and the community effects of Apple-only systems like iMessage.

Apple has succeeded so well at creating desirable products, that if they announced an iPhone 8 today with no new or additional features over the just announced iPhone 7, people would still buy it, just because it’s “one better”.

Winlink amateur radio email via paclink-unix on the Raspberry Pi

This is my second attempt to get a Winlink client (see here for a high level overview of Winlink) working on the Raspberry Pi. I first tried Pat /wl2k-go but it crashed (I created a ticket on github to followup), so for my second attempt I took a look at paclink-unix.

This site has a very detailed step by step install and config steps – follow exactly and pay attention to any errors 🙂 : http://bazaudi.com/plu/doku.php?id=plu:install_plu

A few additional notes:

  • wl2kax25 did not compile for me with the ax25 version that I previously had installed, possibly from apt-get from the default repos. Once I noticed this was missing I went back to the steps in the doc above and downloaded the ax25 packages from source, compiled, installed, rebuilt paclink and now I had the wl2kax25 app
  • Editing the /usr/local/etc/wl2k.conf file: the email= value is your local user email address on your local device, in this case on the Pi (e.g. for me, pi@localhost). This is used when wl2ktelnet/wl2kax25 retrieves incoming messages and it sends them to this user. If you see the wl2k app downloading messages but they’re not showing up in your inbox, check this.
  • Checking /var/log/mail.log is very useful to see what’s happening to your outbound and inbound messages!

The usage sequence is:

  • send outbound message with mail client, e.g. alpine
  • run wl2ktelnet to send over an internet connection if you have one
  • or, run wl2kax25 to send over your configured ax25 stack

The setup I got working is:

  • Raspberry Pi, with alpine (regular email client), direwolf (packet soundcard modem) and ax25 (to link paclink to direwolf)
  • Rigblaster Advantage USB soundcard, connected to an Icom 880

To send over vhf to my nearest Winlink gateway, I used:

  • wl2kax25 -a 1 -c KG6SJT-10 via KBERR

Where

-a 1 is port 1 defined in my /etc/ax25/axports

-c is the call of the Winlink gateway I’m connecting to, and I’m connecting via a packet digipeater, KBERR.