Re: gnuradio (+ friends) packages for conda on Linux, macOS, and Windows

[Glen Langston]

Thanks for your efforts.  That is great.

I’m looking forward to trying 3.8.

We happen to be primarily using Raspberry PI 4s for Radio Astronomy.
Certainly the cost is low to get one, but I imagine the installation time is
a headache for testing every OS.

I hope to eventually get our custom code running in 3.8 and 3.9
then will give your additions a try. 

Best regards

Glen

http://www.github.com/WVURAIL/gr-radio_astro



> On Jul 16, 2020, at 5:30 PM, Ryan Volz <ryan.volz@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi everybody,
> 
> Over the past few months, I've managed to build conda packages for GNU Radio, 
> some out of tree modules, and other related software and make them available 
> through conda-forge (https://conda-forge.org/). The partial list includes:
> 
> gnuradio
> gnuradio-osmosdr
> gnuradio-soapy
> gqrx
> libiio
> pyadi-iio
> rtl-sdr
> uhd
> volk
> 
> The packages have been built for Linux, macOS, and Windows for the 
> environments that conda-forge supports, which should work pretty widely. This 
> means it may now be easier to get the most recent versions of these packages 
> (and more can be added!) running on your system! I've personally found it 
> useful for getting new users (mostly students) started with an SDR stack.
> 
> A bit of background for anyone unfamiliar: conda is a cross-platform package 
> and environment manager, and conda-forge is a community-supported set of 
> build recipes and built packages that you can install into a conda 
> environment. The original focus of conda was for Python packages and related 
> compiled software, but it has grown from there. You install a conda 
> distribution, which provides a base environment, and then you can create new 
> contained environments and install different combinations of software in them.
> 
> To get running with GNU Radio, you'll first need to have a conda distribution 
> installed. Anaconda is the main commercially-supported distribution and what 
> most people probably use (https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/install/), but 
> there is also a lightweight version called Miniconda 
> (https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html) and a community-supported 
> one called Miniforge that is put out by the conda-forge folks 
> (https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge). Once you have a distribution 
> installed for your platform, I'd then recommend creating an environment 
> specifically for GNU Radio (look up 'conda create' and 'conda activate').
> 
> Then from your conda environment, you need to add the conda-forge channel as 
> a package source:
> 
> $ conda config --env --prepend channels conda-forge
> $ conda config --env --set channel_priority strict
> 
> Then you can install the packages with
> 
> $ conda install <package-name>
> 
> where <package-name> can come from the set of GNU Radio and related packages 
> listed above.
> 
> There are also a couple OOT modules that I have on my personal channel 
> 'ryanvolz' (conda config --env --append channels ryanvolz) for which I am 
> waiting on a compatible release before they can be brought to conda-forge:
> 
> gnuradio-iio
> gnuradio-radar
> 
> So if you're interested, give any of these a try! I've done my best so far to 
> make sure they work, but I only have my Linux machine, Windows VM, and 
> friends running macOS with which to test, so feedback from the wider 
> community would be welcome. For that, it's best to file bug reports on the 
> conda-forge Github for the corresponding package "feedstock", e.g. 
> https://github.com/conda-forge/gnuradio-feedstock.
> 
> If anyone is interested in seeing more packages for other related software or 
> OOT modules, I'm also happy to assist in writing the recipe and getting it 
> onto conda-forge. The nice thing is that anyone can contribute new 
> conda-forge packages or improvements in the form of pull requests, so you 
> also don't need me at all if you're so inclined!
> 
> I'm planning on keeping at least all of the current packages up to date with 
> new releases as my time allows, but I would certainly welcome co-maintainers 
> or any bits of extra help. Just let me know or get involved on github!
> 
> Cheers,
> Ryan
>