GNU Radio Installation

This document is for those enthusiastic students who want GNU Radio in their laptops. The document
gives no guarantee on the authenticity of the contents. Contents are largely blatant copies of web-pages on
GNU Radio. Installation in Ubuntu versions less than 12.04 is not recommended. A more stable installation
of GNU Radio for Ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04 is on the way so that students can install it in a much more
hassle-free manner. If you nd errors, either wait for the new installation script, or contact WEL Lab RAs.
Installing GNU Radio on Windows
There are two options.
Install the precompiled binaries from Ettus Research. Refer http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/
gnuradio/wiki/BinaryPackages#Binaries-from-Ettus-Research-Linux-Windows
Build GNU Radio from source.- Help yourself :)
Although the Windows installation is feasible, but there can be instances when many of the newer blocks and
functionalities cannot be incorporated into the installed version. So it is recommended to use GNU Radio in
Linux.
Installing GNU Radio on Linux
There are many options.
Install precompiled binaries that come with the distribution.If your package manager does not nd those
binaries, you can install from source. By installing binaries, you are likely to end up with an older version
of GNU Radio.
Install from source using build-gnuradio script.This scripts automates all the things that one would do if
you were to install GNU Radio from source. Make sure you are connected to Internet. Also as IITB internet
doesnt support cloning via git some packages such as rtl-sdr,gr-osmosdr,etc has to be manually installed.
They wont be installed using the script. Now make sure you have logged in at internet.iitb.ac.in. Update
your package-list before you proceed. For example in Ubuntu run
sudo apt-get update
Open a terminal and run the following command.
wget http://www.sbrac.org/les/build-gnuradio && chmod a+x ./build-gnuradio && ./build-gnuradio
This takes about 2-4 hours. Stay patient and see if it works. If it works, then you should have a working
installation of GNU Radio.
It is possible that wget command does not work. In that case, open the page http://www.sbrac.org/
files/build-gnuradio , and save the page to your computer. Then, open a terminal, cd to the directory
in which you saved the page and run the following command.
chmod a+x ./build-gnuradio && ./build-gnuradio
There can be an error in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64 bit, due to failing of one of the dependency(git-core). In
that case do the following steps:
mkdir /home/user/build
Saved the page http://www.sbrac.org/les/build-gnuradio in /home/user/build directory
cd /home/user/build
sudo apt-get update
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sudo apt-get install git git-core
chmod a+x build-gnuradio
./build-gnuradio
gnuradio-companion (if the window pops up, you are done)
For installing rtl-sdr and gr-osmosdr go to the url http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr and
perform the given steps.
Note:This has to be done using internet from some other source. IITB internet doesnt support git cloning
via git. The download size of the packages doesnt go beyond 20MB. Downloading and installing the same
from any other source is at your own risk.
Install using PyBOMBS. This is now the ocial tool for installation. This installs GNU Radio to a
local directory (a directory within your home directory or any directory with write permission is good
enough.) With this you will have to export environment variables(PKG CONFIG PATH, PYTHONPATH,
LD LIBRARY PATH) on each terminal you want to run GNU Radio. Dont worry, it is quite easy. Follow
the steps given below.
First of all download and install all the dependencies required. You can nd this at http://gnuradio.
org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/UbuntuInstall .
We are going to download the source to /home/user/build and install GNU Radio in /home/user/install.
By build directory we mean /home/user/build and by install prex we mean /home/user/install.
You have to replace user with your username.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git
mkdir /home/user/build
mkdir /home/user/install
cd /home/user/build
git clone https://github.com/pybombs/pybombs.git
cd pybombs
./pybombs cong (When asked for install prex enter /home/user/install. You are free to change other
options if you know what you are doing. Else just press Enter for all other options.)
./pybombs install boost
./pybombs install uhd
./pybombs install gnuradio
./pybombs install rtl-sdr
./pybombs install libosmo-dsp
./pybombs install osmo-sdr
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./pybombs install gr-iqbal
./pybombs install hackrf
./pybombs install bladeRF
./pybombs install gr-osmosdr
./pybombs env
cd /home/user/install
source setup env.sh
./bin/gnuradio companion (if the window pops up, you are done)
Remember, with the above installation you have to run source /home/user/install/setup env.sh every time
you want to run GNU Radio application. This command sets the environment variables for you.
Do it all by yourself. The above two bullets showed how we can make things easy. You are free to do it
all by yourself. Download the source, install prerequisites, compile and install. :)
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