Installing GNURadio and GNURadio Companion

GNURadio can be installed on Windows, OS X and Linux Operating Systems. Linux is by far the easiest and is well supported. Installation on Windows is becoming more routine and installers are now available from Ettus Research. OS X installation is possible through MacPorts. All installations now include the GNURadio Companion (GRC). In addition, these installations also include drivers and firmware for the Ettus USRP line of radios, audio drivers and other software defined radios such as the BladeRF and RTL2832.

Linux Installation

Installation on the Linux platform is fairly straightforward. There are three methods to install GNURadio on Linux. The first method is to install via the distribution's package manager. Most popular distributions have GNURadio in their repositories. This allows for a fairly painless method to install GNURadio. However, be careful with this method as not all repos are updated with the latest version of GNURadio. Ubuntu, Fedora, and SUSE all have packages for GNURadio.

There are two methods for installing from source. The first method uses a script provided by Marcus Leech. The second method uses PyBOMBS to install. Keep in mind that you are installing and compiling from the source code. This may result in long build times depending on your computer.

The first method is to use the install script that has been provided by Marcus Leech. This will install GNURadio, drivers and GNURadio Companion directly from the source code. It will also install any other software needed such as Python and other supporting software. This script will work on both Fedora and Ubuntu. This method was used to build GNURadio for use in the experiments performed at ISU.

To use this method download the build-gnuradio script from the website. Then simply execute this script. The script will check to make sure you have any dependencies installed and if not it will download them for you. Once that is complete it will also download the UHD drivers and GNURadio from their GitHub repos. Please note you will need SU privileges for this script.

The second method uses PyBOMBS. This is now the preferred method and is the method that the developers of GNURadio are moving too. You can find information about installing GNURadio using PyBOMBS at this link.

To install via PyBOMBS simply execute these commands.

git clone git://github.com/pybombs/pybombs
cd pybombs
./pybombs install gnuradio

Once the install is done, execute this command

./pybombs env

Finally you will want to source that file, to do that execute this command, replace the $prefix with the path to the folder you installed GNURadio

source $prefix/setup_env.sh

Once that is done, GNURadio and GNURadio companion should be up and running. To run GRC, execute this command

gnuradio-companion

If you want, the PyBOMBS install now includes a handy app for installation of additional GRC blocks and additional drivers. Use this command to launch this application

./app_store.py

Please be aware that at this time this application is still experimental. It does not for example warn if you are about to replace your most recent GNURadio install with an older version to make it compatible with that add-on. So use this application with care. The link and additional information on installation through this method can be found here. GNURadio Wiki

Mac OS X Installation

Coming soon

Window Installation

Coming soon