Using "Soundcard" tncs

Several packages out there in the wild can use your computer's sound interface (for historical reasons referred to as "Soundcard" because when the earth was still cooling these interfaces were provided by cards inserted into the computer) as a TNC. They all involve setting up cabling to provide both audio input and output to the computer and a way of triggering the radio's push-to-talk.

• Direwolf (Alternate site at github) is now the most popular such program. It runs on most Unix and Unix-like systems such as Linux and FreeBSD.
• You may find old references to "soundmodem" that was once the most popular software TNC, but that is hard to find anymore and may no longer be available.
• A Qt port of soundmodem exists.
• There are soundcard interfaces for Windows. You're on your own to find one until we get some user input from people who still use Windows for this with Xastir. The developers don't.

There may be others. Consult those packages' web sites and installation/setup instructions for details.

These packages all provide interfaces that may look like a Serial Kiss TNC or provide an AGWPE-compatible server process you can connect to.