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flrig

Rig control with a real front panel, shared between programs over XML-RPC

What it does

Talks CAT to a transceiver and gives it a window: frequency, mode, filters, power, S-meter, VFO and memory access, laid out like a front panel. It also runs an XML-RPC server, so fldigi, WSJT-X, a logger and anything else can read and set the radio through flrig instead of each fighting for the serial port.

Why you would want it

That server is the reason. A radio has one CAT port and a station has several programs that want it; without something in the middle, the second program to start finds the port busy. flrig is the piece that makes the normal digital-modes setup -- modem, logger, rig control -- work at the same time.

Before it will work

A CAT interface to the radio and access to its serial device, which means membership of the dialout group. Knowing which model to select: flrig has per-radio backends and the closest-looking one is often not the right one.

How it installs

  • apt: flrig
  • AHRL purges the repository package and builds 2.0.10 from source (inventory unit 51). Debian 13 and Parrot carry 2.0.05, Ubuntu 26.04 and Kali the same, Mint 2.0.04 (measured 2026-08-28). Five point releases is not a reason to own a build -- see docs/contributing/manifests.md -- but it is a reason to record the gap, because flrig's release notes are mostly new radio models and yours may be in one of them.

Known problems

Two programs both configured to open the serial port directly, with flrig also running, is the classic failure -- everything appears configured and the radio behaves erratically. Decide that flrig owns the port and point the rest at flrig. Some radios need specific baud rates and CI-V addresses that no default gets right, and the symptom is silence rather than an error. Debian's Homepage field for this package points at w1hkj.com, which no longer serves the project. Corrected 2026-08-29 after re-checking: it does still resolve, and both it and www.w1hkj.com 301-redirect to kylegentz.com, which has no DNS record at all — so the chain ends nowhere. The subpaths Debian cites return 404 on the way. An earlier note here said the redirect landed on "an unrelated site"; that was read from an empty response and the accurate statement is that the target does not exist. Either way the packaged link is useless, and the live project is w1hkj.org, which is what this manifest points at.

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Where to get help with the software itself

The W1HKJ suite -- linuxham on groups.io.

Source: catalog/packages/flrig.yaml