New digital mode, and it doesn't work. The dialout group.

[admin]

Ok, you eventually followed the instructions and successfully installed a digital mode package, say WSJT-X.
Everything looks right, but it just stubbornly refuses to communicate at all! (Aw, sob, Pengy let me down.... </rant>

Did you make yourself a member of the dialout group? For some reason this little detail, a holdover from when communication packages needed you to be able to dial out, is still necessary for many modern communications apps. so how to do? 'Seasy:
1. Open a terminal Ctrl-Alt-T. (Relax. It doesn't byte and you are not going to nuke your computer.)

Code: Select all

sudo usermod -a -G groupname username

Yes, you put dialout for the groupname and your login for your username. The sudo allows you to execute a command with admin priviledges, and usermod mods a user. The -G is the group name(s) and the -a means to add the user to this group(s).

Cured? It probably still doesn't work, so log out and back in again. The login process reads your group memberships again and now it should all work, and you will never need to re-join the dialout group. You don't need to reboot the entire computer.

Note for the curious: every Linux user has a login or username, and every user belongs to at least one group. This makes controlling access much easier, as each file or directory (folder) also belongs to a user and a group. This explains why you couldn't make the perfectly installed app work for you if you are not a member of its necessary group.
In passing, you might have noticed that if you uninstall some apps in M$ Win, an apology appears that it could not be determined if some files still belong in use, and so have not been removed; not so with Linux Quite the welcome mat for malware?