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linpac

Terminal for AX.25 packet with a built-in mail client and macros

What it does

A multi-channel terminal for AX.25: ten connections at once on separate screens, a scripted macro language for the repetitive parts of working a BBS, and a mail client that speaks the packet BBS protocols directly. Connections are made to a callsign rather than to a hostname.

Why you would want it

It is the classic packet terminal and still the most comfortable way to work a BBS or a node from Linux. The macros matter more than they sound: logging into a BBS, reading new messages and disconnecting is a fixed sequence, and having it on a key is the difference between using packet and admiring it.

Before it will work

A configured AX.25 stack -- ax25-tools with a port defined in /etc/ax25/axports, which Hammunition appends when your callsign is set -- and a TNC or soundmodem behind it. LinPac's own configuration is made by LinPac: the first time you run it, it asks for your callsign, your home BBS with its SSID, the port to reach it on, any digipeaters and the BBS's hierarchical address, and builds ~/LinPac from the answers. Hammunition deliberately writes nothing there (Q-022 #1, measured 2026-09-29 from linpac 0.28's startup script): the questions run only when ~/LinPac does not exist, so a file placed there in advance would skip them and leave LinPac without the macros and tables it copies in, and four of the five answers are not station values.

How it installs

  • apt: linpac

Known problems

Needs the kernel AX.25 stack, which Linux 7.1 removed (merge 64edfa65, 2026-04-24); on a 7.1 or newer kernel -- Kali rolling and Pop!_OS 24.04 on 7.1.5, measured 2026-09-04 -- the plan refuses or defers this unit by name. See ax25-tools and docs/reference/kernel-ax25.md. Nothing works until AX.25 is configured, and the failure is a terminal that connects to nothing rather than a message naming the missing port. AHRL installs libax25 alongside it (inventory unit 25), which Debian's package already depends on. The interface is from the era it comes from: function keys and modes, not menus.

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Where to get help with the software itself

SourceForge project page at the URL above.

Source: catalog/packages/linpac.yaml