Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] new user

[Mark Napier]

Hey Darin,

If you just want the GNU Radio environment up and don't plan on doing any UHD development then my vote for you is the MacBookPro using MacPorts.

Be aware, none of these flows are trouble free.  Over the last couple of months I've tried Mac, Ubuntu, and Windows 7.  Macports gives (for me at least) the nicest final environment to work in.

The thing with MacPorts is that all the dependancies are constantly in flux.  So sign up as a MacPorts user so you can post problems.  When you install gnuradio one or more of the dependancies is likely fail.  Try installing the failing one alone and see if it will finish, be sure to get the specific version right.  Sometime this requires going through the "verbose" log file to get the right name.  You may have to uninstall a few and try again.  Be prepared to burn a *lot* of time.  Seems to be the nature of the beast.  Often something is broken and you have to post the problem to MacPorts to the owner of the particular package.  It usually is turned around in a day or so; remarkable really considering that this is all done gratis.

If this sounds like a pain it is; but it gets you a recent release of GNU Radio that is compiled for your machine.  I'm pretty much in awe at the amount of work put in by the MacPorts team and by the GNU Radio developers.

I installed the fosphor waterfall display for grc and that is truly stunning on the Mac.  Hard to think that it is open source.

Best of luck,

Mark Napier

Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2016 09:52:25 -0500
From: Darin Decker <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden
Subject: [Discuss-gnuradio] new user
Message-ID: <address@hidden>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Good morning, I have been trying to get Gnuradio up and and running all weekend on either a Macbook Pro or a System 76 Ubuntu 12.04 machine but have not had any success.  If I understand correctly, Ubuntu 12.04 is not supported so I have not pursued that much but focused on the Macbook Pro.

When I try to run gnuradio-companion on the Mac, I initially get 'The xterm executable ? is missing?.  When I search for gnu radio.conf, the file doesn?t seem to be on the computer.

Then when I run a simple flow(RTL-SDR Source -> WX GUI FFT Sink), i get a python error of no module named osmosdr.


Then I tried the Live DVD.  Trying both from DVD and from USB Flashdrive.  On both the System 76 and the Mac hardware, I get the same issue.

I have an RTL-SDR device and I believe the program is recognizing the device because it says Rafael Tuner 820; however, it then says PLL won?t lock.  I have tried multiple FM broadcast frequencies; as well as, AM broadcast frequencies.  On the FM, I?m inputting values of 101.1e06 for example.  On the AM I input 108e04 as an example(1080 on am dial is the intended target in that case).

I also have a SDRplay but can?t get that to connect at all.  Looks like if you don?t have a Windows machine, that doesn?t seem to work well yet.  Guessing drivers or something on SDRplay side.

Any help is greatly appreciated.  For right now, I?m just wanting to get it up and running in any way possible.

Darin