homebrew-gnuradio

This is a collection of Homebrew recipes that makes it easier to get GNU Radio, GQRX, HackRF, RTL-SDR and BladeRF running on OS X.

Installation

These steps have been tested on Mavericks 10.9.5 with Apple Command Line Tools 6.1.0.

• Install Homebrew if you haven't already

  ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go)"

  or if you already have it installed, update and upgrade everything:

  brew update
  brew upgrade

• After that run the following commands to make sure you have no issues with your setup, cleanup all warnings

  brew doctor

• Add this line to your profile (ie ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile or ~/.zshenv) and reload your profile (source ~/.profile or exec $SHELL)

  export PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH

• Install the python package prerequisites

  brew install python gcc swig

• Install the prerequisite python packages

  pip install numpy Cheetah lxml
  pip install https://github.com/scipy/scipy/archive/v0.12.0.tar.gz
  export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/X11/lib/pkgconfig" 
  pip install https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/matplotlib/matplotlib/matplotlib-1.2.1/matplotlib-1.2.1.tar.gz

• Install wxmac 2.9 with python bindings

  brew install wxmac --python

• Install gnuradio

  brew tap lucaberta/homebrew-gnuradio
  brew install gnuradio --with-qt

• Create the ~/.gnuradio/config.conf config file for custom block support and add this into it

  [grc]
  local_blocks_path=/usr/local/share/gnuradio/grc/blocks

Optional (for hackrf devices)

• Install hackrf and related blocks

  brew install pkg-config
  brew install hackrf --HEAD gr-osmosdr gr-baz --HEAD

Optional (for rtl-sdr devices)

• Install rtlsdr and related blocks

  brew install rtlsdr gr-osmosdr gr-baz --HEAD

Optional (for bladerf devices)

• Install bladerf and related blocks

  brew install bladerf gr-osmosdr --HEAD

• If you want a graphic interface to play with your HackRF, GQRX is great To install it:

  brew install --HEAD gqrx

  To run:

  gqrx

Configure it to use the HackRF. Probably best to start the sample rate at 1000000 until you know how much your system can handle. Everything should now be working. It is time to give it a try! Below are some of the programs you can try:

gnuradio-companion
osmocom_fft -a hackrf

##Troubleshooting

• Matplotlib

  If you get the following type of errors installing matplotlib:

  error: expected identifier or '(' before '^' token

  Try the following:

  export CC=clang
  export CXX=clang++
  export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/X11/lib"
  export CFLAGS="-I/usr/X11/include -I/usr/X11/include/freetype2"

  From Stackoverflow via @savant42

• gnuradio-companion

  If gnuradio-companion crashes with following error (it happened with older 3.6.5.1 gnuradio), there must be something wrong with Python. Probably some of the libraries are still using system Python.

  Warning: Block with key "xmlrpc_server" already exists.
  Ignoring: /usr/local/Cellar/gnuradio/3.6.5.1/share/gnuradio/grc/blocks/xmlrpc_server.xml
  Fatal Python error: PyThreadState_Get: no current thread
  Abort trap: 6

  To test this theory rename system python to something else and reinstall boost:

  sudo mv /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/ /System/Library/Frameworks/Backup.Python.framework
  brew reinstall boost

  I got it to work in this way. I have not renamed system Python back to original, however I guess it could be done after this step.

• Uninstall Homebrew If you think you have some cruftiness with Homebrew, this Gist will completely uninstall Homebrew and any libraries it may have installed. Of course if you are using Homebrew for other things you could make a mess of your life.

  This Gist is from the Homebrew FAQ

  Then finish the clean-up with these steps

  rm -rf /usr/local/Cellar /usr/local/.git && brew cleanup
  rm -rf /Library/Caches/Homebrew
  rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages