Table of Contents
Introduction
This page attempts to describe a procedure for installing a completeGCC-based toolchain on a modern Windows system. I've developed theseinstructions on my Windows 10 machine, but they should work forversions of Windows as far back as Windows 7. On older versions, you mightwant to use WinAVR. WinAVRused to be the preferred way to get this toolchain set up on Windows,even to the point of being semi-official, but has not been maintained inyears. The installer reportedly wreaks havoc on newer Windows versions, butit likely works great on XP.
Keep in mind that the windows client does not have the GNU Health commands, nor the plugins like GNU Health GNUPG crypto or GNU Health Camera and Federation Resource Locator. Download the Tryton client executable (Windows) and follow the instructions. This Application Note provides a step-by-step guide for building, installing, and updating the open-source toolchain, specifically UHD and GNU Radio, for the USRP from source code on Windows. UHD is fully supported on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10 and can be compiled using Visual Studio 2013, 2015, or 2017.
Install Git
We're going to use the bash shell installed by Git as our starting point.It's easy to install, and if you're using Git on Windows, you might have italready. Click the Start menu and search for 'Git Bash'. If itcomes up, you have it already. If not, download and install Git for Windows. The defaults forall of the choices in the installer will work for our purposes.
Install the Atmel GNU Toolchain
Download the Atmel AVRToolchain for Windows from Atmel's site and run the installer. When askedwhere to extract the files, click the '..' button and navigate toC:Program Files, then click Extract.
Install GNU Make
Download Gnu Make and launch the installer.Accept the default location for the installation. You can choose whether ornot you want an icon in your start menu.
Install avrdude
Download avrdude
. Unzip thearchive, and copy the archive inside to C:Program Files.Update your PATH
Now we need to tell Windows where to locate all of the tools you've justinstalled when you type their names on the command line. Go to the Start menuand open the Control Panel, then go to System. From the left pane, choose'Advanced System Settings'. Under the Advanced tab, click the'Environment Variables' button.
Under User variables, select 'Path' and click the Edit button.If you don't already have a variable called 'Path', click the Newbutton to create it, enter 'Path' without the name, and fill out thevalue as described below.
The Edit window that pops up is unfortunately different depending onwhether you are creating a new variable or only have one item in your path, orif you have multiple items in your path already. In the first two cases, youjust get a textbox for a value. In the third case, you get a list of values.Either way, you want to add the following three values. If you get the list,add them as separate items (see screenshot below). If you get the textbox,enter them separated by semicolons. Make sure that they are entered exactlyor Windows won't be able to find the programs.
The three values to add are:
- C:Program Filesavr8-gnu-toolchainbin
- C:Program Files (x86)GnuWin32bin
- C:Program Filesavrdude
Click OK on all of the windows you've opened.
Install Drivers for your Programmer
This tutorial assumes you are going to use a FabISP, FabTinyStarISP, orother USBtiny-based programmer. If you are using one of the official Atmelprogrammers instead, the easiest way to get the drivers is to install Atmel Studio.
The USBtiny programmers use a generic libusb driver, but Windows 10'sdriver signing policy makes the installation more complicated. Fortunately,there's a tool that helps with this. Download Zadig and launch it. Plug in yourprogrammer, and select the 'USBtinySPI' device in the list. (If itdoesn't show up, go to the Options menu and click 'List AllDevices'. The driver you want to install (to the right of the greenarrow) is either libusb-win32 or libusb0. Click the'Install Driver' button. You should only have to do this once.
Sanity Check
Everything is now installed. Let's check that it all works.
Go to the start menu and search for 'Git Bash' and start it.When you see instructions telling you to open your terminal in othertutorials, this is the terminal window you should use.
Check to make sure that the commands we installed work okay:
make
Type make -v and press enter. You should see:
.. and so on.
If you get a 'command not found' error instead, re-check yourinstallation of make and your path variable setting for typos.
avr-gcc
Type avr-gcc --version and press enter. You should see:
.. and so on.
If you get a 'command not found' error instead, re-check yourinstallation of the Atmel toolchain and your path variable setting fortypos.
avrdude
Connect your programmer to a USB port and type: avrdude -c usbtiny -pt45 and press enter. You should see:
This means that avrdude successfully found your programmer, butfailed to talk to a target board (expected because we don't have anythingconencted to the programmer right now.)
If instead you see:
check your USB driver installation (the Zadig steps).
If you get a 'command not found' error, check your installationof avrdude and your path variable.
Yay!
You should be ready to go!
Thiswork is licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
- 1From Binaries
- 1.1Linux
- 1.1.1Ubuntu PPA Installation
- 1.1Linux
- 2From Source
- 2.2For the GNU Radio Master Branch
- 2.3For GNU Radio 3.8 or Earlier
The recommended way to install GNU Radio on most platforms is using already available binary packages (see Ubuntu PPA Installation). For some platforms there are no binaries provided by available package managers or the GNU Radio project. In these cases please contact the maintainer of the package manager or the GNU Radio project to find a sensible way to provide binaries for your platform.
In addition to using binaries, GNU Radio can be installed:
- From source (for those who want full control)
- Using PyBOMBS (for those who want it built from source and/or installed to a specific directory using a script)
Linux[edit]
Most distributions contain a package named gnuradio or similar in their standard repositories. For most use cases it is enough to install this package and start developing.
The development of GNU Radio is can be fast-paced, and binaries provided by your distribution may be outdated. Do check if the version you're installing is up to date! Sometimes old versions are not updated in the packaging systems. If you find a bug in a older GNU Radio version, please check if the bug still exists in the newer version of GNU Radio before filing a new issue.
If the version shipped in your distribution is outdated please contact the corresponding maintainer to update it in the packaging system.
Here are examples of how to install GNU Radio in various Linux distributions (click the link under 'Distribution' for more installation details):
| Distribution | Command |
|---|---|
| Debian/Ubuntu and derivates | |
| Fedora | |
| RHEL/CentOS | |
| Archlinux | |
| Gentoo Linux | |
| Suse Linux |
On other distributions, simply use the appropriate package management command to install the gnuradio package and then please add it to this list. If you need newer versions or have a different platform please contact the package maintainer of your distribution or raise your issue on the mailing list.
Ubuntu PPA Installation[edit]
For Ubuntu, the latest builds (both released and pulled from master branch) are maintained as PPAs on launchpad. Be sure to uninstall any previously installed versions of gnuradio first.
To access the latest released version (currently 3.8.2.0), add the gnuradio/gnuradio-releases ppa (removing other gnuradio ppas if already configured)
To access the latest from the master branch (currently pre 3.9 release), add the gnuradio/gnuradio-master ppa (removing other gnuradio ppas if already configured)
To access the 3.7 released version (legacy), add the gnuradio/gnuradio-releases-3.7 ppa (removing other gnuradio ppas if already configured)
Then, update the apt sources, and install gnuradio
Modtool on Ubuntu[edit]
NOTE: On released builds for Ubuntu 18 (bionic), there is an issue using gr_modtool after GNU Radio has been installed from the PPA. This is due to byte-compiled code that remains in the modtool templates after installation. To workaround this issue:
This issue does not appear for Ubuntu 19 and later packages
Fedora COPR Installation[edit]
Packages are available for Fedora 29,30,31 hosted under COPR:
1. Add the repository:
-- For the latest released version:
-- For the latest pull from git master:
Imovie for os x 10 11. 2. Install GNU Radio
Windows[edit]
Binary installers are now available for GNU Radio 3.7 and 3.8, download them here.
If you need to install GNU Radio from source refer to the Windows install guide.
Note: We do not officially support Windows. We do our best to provide installation instructions and work out build bugs on Windows when they are reported and patches received. As new versions of GNU Radio, its dependencies, and Windows itself come out, however, keeping all of them working together is beyond the scope of what the project currently supports. User updates to the above wiki installation instructions are very welcome.
Mac OS X[edit]
Refer to the Mac OS X install guide page.
Binary installation should be sufficient for most users, and certainly for anyone who is new to GNU Radio. However, if you have special requirements, want the latest version, or the binary packages are not working for you, you may want to install GNU Radio from source.
Notes[edit]
- By default GNU Radio will be installed in the /usr/local directory. See notes about -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to install it elsewhere.
- Running and developing out-of-tree modules does not require GNU Radio to be installed from source.
- If you are using Ubuntu, see UbuntuInstall#Install_the_Pre-Requisites for installing dependencies / pre-requisites.
- If you want to use GNU Radio with a USRP, you FIRST must clone and install UHD. See [UHD Installation Page] for more info.
- To install on a Raspberry Pi, see InstallingGRFromSource on Raspberry Pi.
Gnu Make On Windows 10
For the GNU Radio Master Branch[edit]
Since Volk is no longer considered as a submodule of GNU Radio (GNU Radio commit #80c04479da962d048d41165081b026aafdaa0316 ),
you MUST FIRST install Volk, and then install GNU Radio.
The basic idea is the same, but instead of building Volk along with GNU Radio, you need to clone and build it separately. For this example, we will start in the home directory. You can, of course, use any directory you wish and the results will be the same.
Step 1: Installing Dependencies[edit]
Refer to this page for your specific Linux distro to find how to install dependencies. For example, on Ubuntu 20.04 use this command.
Step 2: Installing Volk[edit]
cdgit clone --recursive https://github.com/gnuradio/volk.gitcd volkmkdir buildcd buildcmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3 ./makemake testsudo make install
If you're running Linux, then always remember to do the following command after installing any library:
sudo ldconfig
Step 3: Installing GNU Radio[edit]
cdgit clone https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio.gitcd gnuradiomkdir buildcd buildcmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3 ./make
Note: In the following command, it is very possible that not all tests pass. Generally any error is a sign of a missing dependency such as the Python interface to ZMQ or NumPy or SciPy, none of which are required for building GNU Radio but are required for testing.
make testsudo make install
Again, if you're running Linux, then always remember to do the following command after installing any library:
sudo ldconfig
If you encounter 'Cannot import gnuradio' error, then go to Finding the Python library to set your PYTHONPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
After setting these environment variables, you need to dosudo ldconfigagain for the Linux dynamic library loader to find the just-installed GNU Radio libraries.
For GNU Radio 3.8 or Earlier[edit]
Install Gnu Windows
For this example, we will start in the home directory; you can, of course, use any directory you wish and the results will be the same.
cdgit clone https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio.gitcd gnuradio
Note: In the following command, change maint-3.8 to some other branch or tag if you want to build a different version of GNU Radio; see tags for tagged releases including pre-releases ('rc'). For branches, it's generally wise to stick with 'master' (the default after cloning), and, currently: maint-3.7 or maint-3.8. Here we checkout the maint-3.8 branch, which contains the latest 3.8 release plus any fixes or augmentations to it that will be in the next 3.8 release.
git checkout maint-3.8git submodule update --init --recursivemkdir buildcd build
Note: In the following command, you can use -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=XXX to install GNU Radio into the PREFIX XXX; if not specified, then the PREFIX is /usr/local. See other CMake options in Common cmake flags.
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3 ./make -j3(e.g. if you want to use 3 CPU cores during the build. To use 8 do -j8, to use 1 leave out the -j flag.)sudo make install
If you're running Linux, then always remember to do the following command after installing any library:
sudo ldconfig
Go to Finding the Python library to set your PYTHONPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
After setting these environment variables, you need to dosudo ldconfigagain for the Linux dynamic library loader to find the just-installed GNU Radio libraries.
For Ubuntu 18.04[edit]
An easy way to install GNU Radio 3.8 on many Ubuntu systems is to use the following commands (note that this skips the setup for UHD hardware):
sudo apt install git cmake g++ libboost-all-dev libgmp-dev swig python3-numpy python3-mako python3-sphinx python3-lxml doxygen libfftw3-dev libsdl1.2-dev libgsl-dev libqwt-qt5-dev libqt5opengl5-dev python3-pyqt5 liblog4cpp5-dev libzmq3-dev python3-yaml python3-click python3-click-plugins python3-zmq python3-scipy python3-pip python3-gi-cairopip3 install git+https://github.com/pyqtgraph/pyqtgraph@developpip3 install numpy scipyecho 'export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages:usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH' >> ~/.bashrcecho 'export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/user/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH' >> ~/.bashrcecho 'export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages:usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH' >> ~/.profileecho 'export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/user/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH' >> ~/.profilecd ~/git clone --recursive https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradiocd gnuradiogit checkout maint-3.8mkdir buildcd buildgit pull --recurse-submodules=ongit submodule update --initcmake -DENABLE_GR_UHD=OFF .make -j $(nproc --all)sudo make installsudo ldconfig
Once this is done, reboot your computer and GNU Radio should be all set for you.
avr-gcc
Type avr-gcc --version and press enter. You should see:
.. and so on.
If you get a 'command not found' error instead, re-check yourinstallation of the Atmel toolchain and your path variable setting fortypos.
avrdude
Connect your programmer to a USB port and type: avrdude -c usbtiny -pt45 and press enter. You should see:
This means that avrdude successfully found your programmer, butfailed to talk to a target board (expected because we don't have anythingconencted to the programmer right now.)
If instead you see:
check your USB driver installation (the Zadig steps).
If you get a 'command not found' error, check your installationof avrdude and your path variable.
Yay!
You should be ready to go!
Thiswork is licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
- 1From Binaries
- 1.1Linux
- 1.1.1Ubuntu PPA Installation
- 1.1Linux
- 2From Source
- 2.2For the GNU Radio Master Branch
- 2.3For GNU Radio 3.8 or Earlier
The recommended way to install GNU Radio on most platforms is using already available binary packages (see Ubuntu PPA Installation). For some platforms there are no binaries provided by available package managers or the GNU Radio project. In these cases please contact the maintainer of the package manager or the GNU Radio project to find a sensible way to provide binaries for your platform.
In addition to using binaries, GNU Radio can be installed:
- From source (for those who want full control)
- Using PyBOMBS (for those who want it built from source and/or installed to a specific directory using a script)
Linux[edit]
Most distributions contain a package named gnuradio or similar in their standard repositories. For most use cases it is enough to install this package and start developing.
The development of GNU Radio is can be fast-paced, and binaries provided by your distribution may be outdated. Do check if the version you're installing is up to date! Sometimes old versions are not updated in the packaging systems. If you find a bug in a older GNU Radio version, please check if the bug still exists in the newer version of GNU Radio before filing a new issue.
If the version shipped in your distribution is outdated please contact the corresponding maintainer to update it in the packaging system.
Here are examples of how to install GNU Radio in various Linux distributions (click the link under 'Distribution' for more installation details):
| Distribution | Command |
|---|---|
| Debian/Ubuntu and derivates | |
| Fedora | |
| RHEL/CentOS | |
| Archlinux | |
| Gentoo Linux | |
| Suse Linux |
On other distributions, simply use the appropriate package management command to install the gnuradio package and then please add it to this list. If you need newer versions or have a different platform please contact the package maintainer of your distribution or raise your issue on the mailing list.
Ubuntu PPA Installation[edit]
For Ubuntu, the latest builds (both released and pulled from master branch) are maintained as PPAs on launchpad. Be sure to uninstall any previously installed versions of gnuradio first.
To access the latest released version (currently 3.8.2.0), add the gnuradio/gnuradio-releases ppa (removing other gnuradio ppas if already configured)
To access the latest from the master branch (currently pre 3.9 release), add the gnuradio/gnuradio-master ppa (removing other gnuradio ppas if already configured)
To access the 3.7 released version (legacy), add the gnuradio/gnuradio-releases-3.7 ppa (removing other gnuradio ppas if already configured)
Then, update the apt sources, and install gnuradio
Modtool on Ubuntu[edit]
NOTE: On released builds for Ubuntu 18 (bionic), there is an issue using gr_modtool after GNU Radio has been installed from the PPA. This is due to byte-compiled code that remains in the modtool templates after installation. To workaround this issue:
This issue does not appear for Ubuntu 19 and later packages
Fedora COPR Installation[edit]
Packages are available for Fedora 29,30,31 hosted under COPR:
1. Add the repository:
-- For the latest released version:
-- For the latest pull from git master:
Imovie for os x 10 11. 2. Install GNU Radio
Windows[edit]
Binary installers are now available for GNU Radio 3.7 and 3.8, download them here.
If you need to install GNU Radio from source refer to the Windows install guide.
Note: We do not officially support Windows. We do our best to provide installation instructions and work out build bugs on Windows when they are reported and patches received. As new versions of GNU Radio, its dependencies, and Windows itself come out, however, keeping all of them working together is beyond the scope of what the project currently supports. User updates to the above wiki installation instructions are very welcome.
Mac OS X[edit]
Refer to the Mac OS X install guide page.
Binary installation should be sufficient for most users, and certainly for anyone who is new to GNU Radio. However, if you have special requirements, want the latest version, or the binary packages are not working for you, you may want to install GNU Radio from source.
Notes[edit]
- By default GNU Radio will be installed in the /usr/local directory. See notes about -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to install it elsewhere.
- Running and developing out-of-tree modules does not require GNU Radio to be installed from source.
- If you are using Ubuntu, see UbuntuInstall#Install_the_Pre-Requisites for installing dependencies / pre-requisites.
- If you want to use GNU Radio with a USRP, you FIRST must clone and install UHD. See [UHD Installation Page] for more info.
- To install on a Raspberry Pi, see InstallingGRFromSource on Raspberry Pi.
Gnu Make On Windows 10
For the GNU Radio Master Branch[edit]
Since Volk is no longer considered as a submodule of GNU Radio (GNU Radio commit #80c04479da962d048d41165081b026aafdaa0316 ),
you MUST FIRST install Volk, and then install GNU Radio.
The basic idea is the same, but instead of building Volk along with GNU Radio, you need to clone and build it separately. For this example, we will start in the home directory. You can, of course, use any directory you wish and the results will be the same.
Step 1: Installing Dependencies[edit]
Refer to this page for your specific Linux distro to find how to install dependencies. For example, on Ubuntu 20.04 use this command.
Step 2: Installing Volk[edit]
cdgit clone --recursive https://github.com/gnuradio/volk.gitcd volkmkdir buildcd buildcmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3 ./makemake testsudo make install
If you're running Linux, then always remember to do the following command after installing any library:
sudo ldconfig
Step 3: Installing GNU Radio[edit]
cdgit clone https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio.gitcd gnuradiomkdir buildcd buildcmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3 ./make
Note: In the following command, it is very possible that not all tests pass. Generally any error is a sign of a missing dependency such as the Python interface to ZMQ or NumPy or SciPy, none of which are required for building GNU Radio but are required for testing.
make testsudo make install
Again, if you're running Linux, then always remember to do the following command after installing any library:
sudo ldconfig
If you encounter 'Cannot import gnuradio' error, then go to Finding the Python library to set your PYTHONPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
After setting these environment variables, you need to dosudo ldconfigagain for the Linux dynamic library loader to find the just-installed GNU Radio libraries.
For GNU Radio 3.8 or Earlier[edit]
Install Gnu Windows
For this example, we will start in the home directory; you can, of course, use any directory you wish and the results will be the same.
cdgit clone https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio.gitcd gnuradio
Note: In the following command, change maint-3.8 to some other branch or tag if you want to build a different version of GNU Radio; see tags for tagged releases including pre-releases ('rc'). For branches, it's generally wise to stick with 'master' (the default after cloning), and, currently: maint-3.7 or maint-3.8. Here we checkout the maint-3.8 branch, which contains the latest 3.8 release plus any fixes or augmentations to it that will be in the next 3.8 release.
git checkout maint-3.8git submodule update --init --recursivemkdir buildcd build
Note: In the following command, you can use -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=XXX to install GNU Radio into the PREFIX XXX; if not specified, then the PREFIX is /usr/local. See other CMake options in Common cmake flags.
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3 ./make -j3(e.g. if you want to use 3 CPU cores during the build. To use 8 do -j8, to use 1 leave out the -j flag.)sudo make install
If you're running Linux, then always remember to do the following command after installing any library:
sudo ldconfig
Go to Finding the Python library to set your PYTHONPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
After setting these environment variables, you need to dosudo ldconfigagain for the Linux dynamic library loader to find the just-installed GNU Radio libraries.
For Ubuntu 18.04[edit]
An easy way to install GNU Radio 3.8 on many Ubuntu systems is to use the following commands (note that this skips the setup for UHD hardware):
sudo apt install git cmake g++ libboost-all-dev libgmp-dev swig python3-numpy python3-mako python3-sphinx python3-lxml doxygen libfftw3-dev libsdl1.2-dev libgsl-dev libqwt-qt5-dev libqt5opengl5-dev python3-pyqt5 liblog4cpp5-dev libzmq3-dev python3-yaml python3-click python3-click-plugins python3-zmq python3-scipy python3-pip python3-gi-cairopip3 install git+https://github.com/pyqtgraph/pyqtgraph@developpip3 install numpy scipyecho 'export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages:usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH' >> ~/.bashrcecho 'export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/user/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH' >> ~/.bashrcecho 'export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages:usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH' >> ~/.profileecho 'export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/user/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH' >> ~/.profilecd ~/git clone --recursive https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradiocd gnuradiogit checkout maint-3.8mkdir buildcd buildgit pull --recurse-submodules=ongit submodule update --initcmake -DENABLE_GR_UHD=OFF .make -j $(nproc --all)sudo make installsudo ldconfig
Once this is done, reboot your computer and GNU Radio should be all set for you.
Common cmake flags[edit]
-DENABLE_GR_XXX=ONThis enables (or disables for =OFF) the GNU Radio component named XXX. You might not need all of them, and this way, you can compile quicker.-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=XXXInstall your stuff to XXX.-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=DebugThis causes gcc to add debug symbols to all binaries. Useful for debugging (otherwise, it decreases efficiency!)-DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python{2,3}This selects the Python version and executable to be used during build time and will determine which Python libraries will be used for building the Python bindings.
For a list of additional cmake flags, as well as minimum versions of dependencies, see [1]
PyBOMBS is good at building GNU Radio, UHD, and various Out of Tree (OOT) modules from source and then installing into a specified user directory rather than in the system files. PyBOMBS detects the user's Operating System and loads all of the prerequisites in the first stage of the build.
The PyBOMBS documentation is in the PyBOMBS README.
Download Octave Gnu
If the installation worked without any trouble, you're ready to use GNU Radio! If you have no idea how to do that, the best place to start is with the Tutorials.
Install Gnu Radio On Windows
Optionally, you may run volk_profile on your terminal to help libvolk to determine the optimal kernels (may speed up GNU Radio).
