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.
These steps have been tested on Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10 with Apple Command Line Tools 6.1.0.
-
Install Homebrew if you haven't already
ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
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
orexec $SHELL
)export PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH
-
Install the python package prerequisites
brew install python gcc swig
-
Install command line tools for XCode
xcode-select --install
-
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
with python bindingsbrew install wxpython
-
Install gnuradio
brew tap andresv/homebrew-gnuradio brew install gnuradio --with-qt
-
[optional] install
hackrf
libraries, sogr-osmosdr
detects it during buildbrew install hackrf --HEAD
-
[optional] install
bladerf
libraries, sogr-osmosdr
detects it during buildbrew install bladerf
-
[optional] install
rtlsdr
libraries, sogr-osmosdr
detects it during buildbrew install rtlsdr --HEAD
-
Install blocks that are needed to connect real hardware (rtl-sdr, hackrf, bladerf) to gnuradio
brew install gr-osmosdr gr-baz --HEAD
-
Create the
~/.gnuradio/config.conf
config file for custom block support:mkdir ~/.gnuradio vim ~/.gnuradio/config.conf
Add these lines into file otherwise gnuradio is unable to locate blocks from
gr-osmosdr
andgr-baz
:[grc] local_blocks_path=/usr/local/share/gnuradio/grc/blocks
gnuradio-companion
shows lot of duplication warnings after that - this is normal. Everything is installed correctly ifosmocom Source
andRTL-SDR Source
blocks are available inside GNU Radio Companion. -
Install Gqrx for scanning frequencies and viewing waterfall
brew install gqrx --HEAD brew linkapps
Gqrx is installed under Applications and can be started as usual Mac application.
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
Probably
gr-baz.rb
is built against System's Python if gnuradio-companion crashes with the following error:Warning: Block with key "xmlrpc_server" already exists. Ignoring: /usr/local/Cellar/gnuradio/3.7.5.1/share/gnuradio/grc/blocks/xmlrpc_server.xml Fatal Python error: PyThreadState_Get: no current thread Abort trap: 6
I had this error, now it is fixed with this commit.
-
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