Re: Use /dev/swradioN (v4l2 api) as source

[Chris Vine]

On Mon, 13 Jun 2022 21:26:34 +0200
Stefan Oltmanns <stefan-oltmanns@gmx.net> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> is there any way to use devices exposed as /dev/swradioN by the v4l2
> Linux kernel API with GNURadio directly?
> 
> At the moment there are only two in-tree kernel drivers, one for the
> RTL2832U and the other for the Mirics MSi2500. For the RTL2832U
> librtlsdr seems to be the better option,b as it offers more features to
> control the device, but libmirisdr seems to unmaintained and not stable
> (at least for me), support has been removed from OsmoSDR years ago.
> I do have such a Dongle and with the kernel driver it seems to work just
> fine.
> 
> I also found an out-of-tree driver for CX2388x-based TV cards, so a V4L2
> source block could be very useful. Is there any specific reason, why
> such a source block doesn't exist yet?
> Or is it just that nobody needed it and therefore no one bothered
> writing one?

Not to answer your question about kernel drivers, but the SDRPlay
RSP1/1A devices use the Mirics MSi2500 and MSi001 chipset so it may be
worth trying out the SDRPlay-2.13.1 binary blob with SoapySDRPlay2 on
your device (or possibly the SDRPlay-3.* binary blob with
SoapySDRPlay3).  They work well for me using the gr-soapy built-in
gnuradio block, but I use SDRPlay-branded kit for which the blobs were
designed.

The gr-osmosdr block will also work with it provided you use
gr-osmosdr's soapy backend, and not the native sdrplay backend which is
completely broken.