Geofferey/librtlsdr

Software to turn the RTL2832U into an SDR

Description

rtl-sdr turns your Realtek RTL2832 based DVB dongle into a SDR receiver

New enhancements and features in this version

Many different developments have been taken in this release. For an overview, see improvements

Build / Install (on debian/ubuntu)

prerequisites

development tools have to be installed:

sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake git

install the libusb-1.0 development package::

sudo apt-get install libusb-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev

retrieve the sources - right branch

git clone https://github.com/librtlsdr/librtlsdr.git

in case you want the development branch, e.g. for testing or preparing patches:

cd librtlsdr
git checkout development

by default, you should have the master branch, in doubt:

cd librtlsdr
git status
git checkout master

build

run cmake and start compilation. cmake will accept some options, e.g.

• -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON, default is OFF
• -DDETACH_KERNEL_DRIVER=ON, default is OFF
• -DPROVIDE_UDP_SERVER=ON, default is OFF
• -DWITH_RPC=ON, default is OFF
• -DLINK_RTLTOOLS_AGAINST_STATIC_LIB=ON, default is OFF
• -DRTL_STATIC_BUILD=OFF, default is ON: for MINGW on WIN32

all cmake options are optional

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ../ -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON
make

install

setup into prefix, usually will require sudo:

sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

Development builds / binaries

GitHub Actions is used for development builds - for Linux (x86), MacOS and Windows x86 32/64. Cross-builds for Windows from a Linux machine: see cross_build_mingw32.sh or cross_build_mingw64.sh

For more information see:

http://superkuh.com/rtlsdr.html

https://osmocom.org/projects/rtl-sdr/wiki/Rtl-sdr

Setup for SDR only use - without DVB compatibility:

• a special USB vendor/product id got reserved at http://pid.codes/ : 0x1209/0x2832
• for such devices the linux kernel's DVB modules are not loaded automatically, thus can be used without blacklisting dvb_usb_rtl28xxu below /etc/modprobe.d/
• this allows to use a second RTL dongle for use with DVB in parallel
• the IDs can be programmed with 'rtl_eeprom -n' or 'rtl_eeprom -g realtek_sdr'
• for permanent blacklisting you might check/call following from the clone git directory ./install-blacklist.sh

Contributing

Pull requests are always welcome but please make changes to, and pull request from, the development branch.

Initial setup:

• fork the librtlsdr repo via GitHub
• clone your fork locally and cd to the cloned repo's folder
• add the upstream development repo:
  • git remote add upstream git@github.com:librtlsdr/librtlsdr.git
• track the development branch:
  • git branch --track development origin/development

Normal workflow:

• checkout the development branch and make your changes
• commit your changes
• sync your local development branch with the upstream development branch:
  • git fetch upstream
  • git merge upstream/development
• push your commit/s to your forked repo
• do a pull request via GitHub