AX.25 support in the Linux kernel has been fairly stable since the 2.2 series of kernel versions. This document assumes you are using the most recent kernel, which as the time of writing was 2.4.9.

Software versions listed in this document were the latest at the time of writing, but are subject to change. Check for newer versions when downloading them.

3.1. Finding the kernel, tools and utility packages

3.1.1. The kernel source

The kernel source can be found at www.kernel.org and ftp.kernel.org. For the 2.4.9 kernel it would be downloaded from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/linux-2.4.9.tar.gz.

3.1.2. The network tools

The latest release of the standard Linux network tools support AX.25 and NET/ROM and can be found at http://www.tazenda.demon.co.uk/phil/net-tools.

The latest ipchains package can be found at http://netfilter.filewatcher.org/ipchains.

It is usually not necessary to download and install these as any recent Linux distribution should include them.

3.1.3. The AX.25 utilities

The old ax25-utils used with the 2.0 and 2.1 kernels is now obsolete and has been replaced with new packages hosted on SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/hams.

The software is distributed as three packages: the AX.25 library, tools, and applications. At the time of writing the most recent versions were the following: