After downloading and installing UUI, use it to install the The GNU Radio Live SDR Environment ISO image to your USB flash drive. UUI will ask you to select a.iso file. Select ISO image you downloaded to your desktop in the previous step. For convenience, you can also choose 1000 to 2000 MB. This is a script that comes with GNU Radio. Download the example scripts from the GNURadio repository. GNU Radio Companion (GRC) is a graphical user interface that allows you to build GNU Radio flow Keep in mind that every time you run your flow graph in GRC, it will overwrite the Python script that is. 0-tools. ctl-script depends on sudo.
- 1Installing GNU Radio on MacOS X / macOS
- 1.5From Source
- 1.8Typical Errors and Warnings
GNU Radio has been compiled and installed on OSX 10.4 ('Tiger') through 10.15 ('Catalina') running any compatible version of Xcode on all recent and many older Macs -- whether Intel or PowerPC/PPC. There is very little support for getting the background libraries and applications installed on OSX 10.5 or earlier, nor 32-bit Intel or any PPC, though all of these should be possible. Primary support is for 64-bit Intel-based Macs running OSX 10.6 or newer.
Prerequisite: X11.app, recommended via XQuartz[edit]
Running almost any GNU Radio graphical interface (GUI) will require downloading and installing X11/XQuartz first. Through OSX 10.8, Apple provided a means to install X11.app, but XQuartz has always been more up to date and hence is recommended for use. Staring in OSX 10.9, Apple no longer provided a full working version of X11.app. Hence, just use XQuartz from the get-go. Note that unless you experiment with using the Quartz interface to various graphical toolkits (e.g., GTK), you must use X11.app as the terminal interface for GNU Radio GUI applications including GRC, the GNU Radio Companion.
A note about DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH and other DYLD environment variables[edit]
On OSX, the library search path is set primarily by the environment variable DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
(and the few other DYLD_*
variables). Because of the way the OSX dynamic library loader works, this variable works differently than the LD_LIBRARY_PATH
on Linux. Its primary purpose is in finding libraries in a local path, such as when testing software before installing it (we use it in make test
in GR), or inside an application. We strongly recommend against setting this variable globally as is typically done with Linux and LD_LIBRARY_PATH
. Setting any DYLD_*
environment variable for general use is highly discouraged, because doing so, in our experience, leads to problems down the road that are very difficult to diagnose. OSX provides robust means for correcting DYLD-based issues even after dependencies are installed.
Via MacPorts (recommended)[edit]
If you do not already have MacPorts installed, you will need to install it first. Make sure to follow the MacPorts shell environment changes needed such that MacPorts installed executables are found before all others. These are the only changes to the shell environment needed to execute any MacPorts-installed executable!
Once MacPorts is installed, GNU Radio and all of its dependencies can be installed by executing
This method of installing GNU Radio is actively kept up to date by Michael Dickens, and hence is the recommended way to install GNU Radio on Mac OS X.
The latest developments in GNU Radio can be installed via
Please note that the gnuradio-devel
port, while tested for basic compilation and functionality, is not a formal release and hence should be considered beta software which might contain bugs or major issues.
Other Package Managers[edit]
Fink and HomeBrew might provide a simple way to install GNU Radio; they are untested (as of early 2020).
From Source[edit]
Background Dependencies[edit]
There are a number of background libraries and applications that must be installed from source or binary in order to compile or execute GNU Radio. These can be obtained by using MacPorts, Fink, HomeBrew, and/or from source / scratch. MacPorts tends to be more up-to-date with respect to new releases, which can be both a blessing and a curse since sometimes new released are untested and result in build or runtime errors. MacPorts, HomeBrew, and Fink offer thousands of ready-to-install libraries and applications, and hence they are highly recommended to use instead of installing from source / scratch.
NOTE: We highly recommended that you install all dependencies via the same package manager! When issues arise, they are much easier to track down, and your updating to newer versions is also much easier.
Many GNU Radio developers first install GNU Radio using MacPorts in order to get all of the necessary background dependencies installed, then remove just GNU Radio via
Compiling GNU Radio using Kate Temkins build script[edit]
Kate Temkin's GitHub repository gnuradio-for-mac-without-macports provides a build script that automate the entire process of building and installing GNUradio, it's dependencies, and a number of SDR hardware backends.
Compiling GNU Radio from Source[edit]
Installing GNU Radio from source follows the standard build guide, with changes to the cmake
command such that it always finds the correct version of Python, uses the desired compiler, and finds Sphinx to build documentation.
For example, using Xcode 5 or later's Apple GCC (llvm flavor), MacPorts installed into /opt/local
(the default), and for Python 2.7 (as installed by MacPorts), issue the following commands from within the GNU Radio source directory:
If make
succeeds, then you can test the build for errors via
$ make test
To install the build, issue
$ sudo make install
Selecting another compiler is as simple as changing the CC and CXX pre-arguments to the cmake
command. Note that all of the -DPYTHON*
defines must point to the same install of Python, otherwise runtime errors are likely to occur. GR_PYTHON_DIR
sets the location into which GNU Radio's Python and SWIG files are to be installed.
By default, the location where cmake built projects will be installed is /usr/local
. To change this location, add -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/new/location
to the cmake command line, substituting in the actual desired path for /path/to/new/location
. For example, to install into /opt/local
, use -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/local
. Although we do not generally recommend installing into the same location as some other package manager does, this technique can be useful for debugging purposes; just remember to sudo make uninstall
before installing via the owning package manager.
A note about GR_PYTHON_DIR CMake setting and the PYTHONPATH environment variable[edit]
In the above cmake
command, we use the flag GR_PYTHON_DIR
to tell GNU Radio where to install its Python scripts and related SWIG libraries. The path noted in that command will work for the MacPorts installed python2.7
command. All of the rest of the installed files will be under the /usr/local
prefix -- the default CMake setting for when -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
is not specified.
If you either do not set the GR_PYTHON_DIR
flag, or use some other location, you might need to tell Python where to find the installed files. This is done by setting the environment variable PYTHONPATH
to include this path. For example, if no GR_PYTHON_DIR
or CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
flag is specified on the cmake
command, then the default install directory will be /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages
, and you'll want to set the PYTHONPATH
such as the folllwing
export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH
Download Gnu Radio Companion
This setting might be in the file ~/.profile
, ~/.bashrc
, or ~/.bash_profile
.
When using a package manager such as MacPorts, for most users it is recommended to use the version of GNU Radio provided by the package manager, which will not require changing the PYTHONPATH
since that package manager will automatically install the GNU Radio Python files where its Python will find them.
Upgrading to a new version of OSX on the same computer[edit]
When you upgrade OSX, you'll generally need to reinstall GNU Radio (and, all of its dependencies). If you are using MacPorts, you can follow their migration guide to do the reinstallation. You can always just remove all of the old installed files and/or reinstall over them.
Typical Errors and Warnings[edit]
Library not found[edit]
If you are compiling an out of tree module from source, some of them do not set the INSTALL_NAME by default. Without a correct set INSTALL_NAME, the library's self-id will be incorrect and the SWIG library will fail to be able to find the module's primary library. The actual runtime error will look like
Running otool -L
on the libraries returns just the dependent library name without path, e.g.,
This issue has been fixed within GNU Radio and is in modtool
, and has been propagated to many GR projects. The simple solution is to paste the following chunk of code into the module's top-level CMakeLists.txt file (just after GR_LIBRARY_DIR
is defined):
Another solution is to change the installed main and SWIG libraries to have the correct settings. In the case above for gr-air-modes, one could do the following to fix the issue:
Warnings: GTK[edit]
When executing a GNU Radio GUI, including gnuradio-companion, GTK will produce the following warnings on OSX 10.8; they can safely be ignored:
Error: Unusable DISPLAY[edit]
When executing a GNU Radio GUI, including gnuradio-companion, from a terminal window (e.g., Terminal.app, iTerm2.app, X11.app) when not the primary user or when the DISPLAY environment variable is not correctly set, one typically sees the following, regardless of OSX version:
followed by a host of related failed assertions and errors.
If you are using Terminal.app, you'll need to switch to another terminal application such as XQuartz/X11.app or iTerm2.app .
If you are already using an application that correctly sets the DISPLAY
environment variable, then you'll want to make sure you're logged in as the primary user (e.g., not as su
to another user). If all else fails, try quitting and restarting the application. Try rebooting your computer. When all else fails, contact Michael.
Fatal error: 'unistd.h' file not found[edit]
If your install fails and you notice a line in the reported log file that says something like Fatal error: 'unistd.h' file not found
, it's likely due to the path to the active developer tools not correctly setup. To fix, simply execute the following command:
Gnu Radio Companion Blocks
xcode-select --install
Gnu Radio Companion Manual
A confirmation dialog box will pop-up and the tools will be installed. From here, re-kickstart the gnuradio installation and you should be good to go.
Gnu Radio Companion Download Mac Software
Gnu Radio Companion Examples
Name | Most Recent Commit | Description | GNU Radio supported versions |
---|---|---|---|
gr‑satellites | Sept. 26, 2020 | A collection of decoders for Amateur satellites | v3.8 |
gr‑pdu_utils | Sept. 26, 2020 | Tools for manipulation of PDU objects | v3.7, v3.8 |
gr‑sandia_utils | Sept. 26, 2020 | A collection of assorted GR functions and extended in-tree blocks | v3.7, v3.8 |
gr‑pager | Sept. 26, 2020 | Motorola FLEX protocol decoder | v3.8 |
gr‑fhss_utils | Sept. 24, 2020 | Broadband energy based burst detection blocks | v3.7, v3.8 |
gr‑timing_utils | Sept. 24, 2020 | Tools for advanced timing within GR | v3.7, v3.8 |
gr‑limesdr | Sept. 22, 2020 | gr-limesdr blocks are used to control LimeSDR family devices | — |
gr‑lora | Sept. 21, 2020 | GNURadio blocks for receiving LoRa modulated radio messages using SDR | — |
gr‑iridium | Sept. 19, 2020 | GNURadio components to receive and demodulate Iridium frames | v3.7,v3.8 |
gr‑iridium | Sept. 19, 2020 | GNURadio components to receive and demodulate Iridium frames | v3.7,v3.8 |
gr‑clenabled | Sept. 17, 2020 | Short description of gr-clenabled | — |
gr‑dvbs2 | Sept. 15, 2020 | A DVB-S2 and DVB-S2X transmitter. | — |
gr‑iio | Sept. 7, 2020 | Analog Devices' IIO blocks for GNU Radio | — |
gr‑hpsdr | Sept. 7, 2020 | modules for OpenHPSDR Hermes / Metis and Red Pitaya | — |
gr‑bokehgui | Sept. 4, 2020 | Provides various sinks and widgets to allow interaction with the live GNU Radio applications remotely over the network | — |
gr‑mixalot | Sept. 1, 2020 | Blocks/utilities to encode pager messages | — |
XFDMSync | Aug. 25, 2020 | Schmidl&Cox based synchronization blocks for multicarrier modulation | — |
gr‑ettus | Aug. 21, 2020 | Experimental UHD and USRP features for GNU Radio | — |
gr‑ccsds | Aug. 14, 2020 | Short description of gr-ccsds | — |
gr‑ais | Aug. 13, 2020 | None | — |
gr‑keyfob | Aug. 12, 2020 | A transceiver for some Hella key fobs | — |
gr‑foo | Aug. 12, 2020 | some utility blocks | — |
gr‑ieee802‑15‑4 | Aug. 12, 2020 | An IEEE 802.15.4 (ZigBee) Transceiver | — |
gr‑ieee802‑11 | Aug. 12, 2020 | IEEE 802.11 a/g/p Transceiver | — |
gr‑fcdproplus | Aug. 11, 2020 | A GNU Radio funcube dongle and funcube dongle pro+ source | — |
gr‑rds | Aug. 7, 2020 | FM RDS/TMC Transceiver | — |
gr‑gmuground | July 28, 2020 | A collection of OOT modules for developing an amateur satellite communications ground station. | — |
gr‑nrsc5 | July 27, 2020 | A GNU Radio implementation of HD Radio (NRSC-5) | — |
gr‑gfdm | July 24, 2020 | Implementation of the GFDM waveform for usage in GNU Radio | 3.8, 3.9 |
gr‑isdbt | July 23, 2020 | A complete receiver for the digital TV standard ISDB-T. | — |
gr‑ax25 | July 15, 2020 | None | — |
gr‑symbolmapping | July 10, 2020 | blocks and functions for symbol mapping and bit interleaving | 3.8, 3.9 |
gr‑lilacsat | July 10, 2020 | None | — |
gr‑finite‑stream | July 7, 2020 | Blocks for handling streams of finite length | v3.8 |
gr‑dab | July 7, 2020 | GNU Radio Digital Audio Broadcasting module | v3.8 |
gr‑cessb | July 5, 2020 | A Controlled Envelope SSB transmitter. | — |
gr‑paint | July 2, 2020 | An OFDM spectrum painter/transmitter. | — |
gr‑tutorial | June 14, 2020 | None | — |
gr‑hrpt | June 3, 2020 | HRPT blocks from gr-noaa and others for gr3.8+ | — |
gr‑specest | May 25, 2020 | Implementations of many spectral estimation algorithms | — |
gr‑reveng | May 11, 2020 | Short description of gr-reveng | — |
gr‑ham | May 11, 2020 | A collection of GNU Radio blocks useful for amateur radio | — |
gr‑lazyviterbi | May 8, 2020 | Short description of gr-lazyviterbi | — |
gr‑air‑modes | May 6, 2020 | None | — |
gr‑yuv2pal | April 20, 2020 | Blocks to convert YUV-signal into PAL. | — |
gr‑filerepeater | April 19, 2020 | A set of GNURadio blocks with more control over how files are played | — |
gr‑lfast | April 19, 2020 | Short description of gr-lfast | — |
gr‑mesa | April 19, 2020 | Short description of gr-mesa | — |
gr‑grnet | April 13, 2020 | Short description of gr-grnet | — |
gr‑symbolrate | April 13, 2020 | Short description of gr-symbolrate | — |
gr‑baz | April 9, 2020 | Short description of gr-baz | — |
gr‑correctiq | March 1, 2020 | Short description of gr-correctiq | — |
gr‑gpredict‑doppler | Feb. 13, 2020 | None | — |
gr‑guiextra | Feb. 12, 2020 | Short description of gr-guiextra | — |
gr‑inspector | Feb. 6, 2020 | A signal analysis toolbox for GNU Radio | v3.7,v3.8 |
gr‑mthpower | Jan. 25, 2020 | Feed Forward Frequency and Phase recovery for M-PSK | — |
gr‑flarm | Jan. 11, 2020 | A GNU Radio implementation of the FLARM protocol | — |
gr‑dsd | Jan. 10, 2020 | A GNU Radio wrapper for Digital Speech Decoder (DSD) | — |
gr‑elster | Jan. 10, 2020 | A receiver for Elster REX2 smart meters | — |
gr‑dect2 | Jan. 5, 2020 | None | — |
gr‑fosphor | Dec. 8, 2019 | GNU Radio block for RTSA-like spectrum visualization using OpenCL and OpenGL acceleration | v3.7, v3.8 |
gr‑iqbal | Dec. 4, 2019 | GNU Radio block to correct IQ imbalance in quadrature receivers | v3.7, v3.8 |
gr‑gwncppvgb | Oct. 8, 2019 | GNU Wireless Network, a data network development toolkit | — |
gr‑aep | Sept. 10, 2019 | A GNU Radio Module for performing beamforming using Adaptive Event Processing | — |
gr‑microtelecom | Aug. 31, 2019 | Microtelecom's Perseus SDR source module | — |
gr‑rstt | Aug. 26, 2019 | Receiver for Vaisala Weather Balloons | — |
gr‑gsm | July 25, 2019 | A GSM receiver | — |
gr‑doa | July 8, 2019 | Direction Finding with the USRP X-Series and TwinRX | — |
gr‑framers | April 7, 2019 | None | — |
gr‑bluetooth | March 21, 2019 | None | — |
aistx | Dec. 4, 2018 | None | — |
gr‑mapper | Oct. 23, 2018 | Symbol to Bit Mapping and Demapping Blocks for GNU Radio | — |
gr‑analysis | Oct. 9, 2018 | None | — |
gr‑lpwan | Sept. 20, 2018 | gr-lpwan contains implementation of IEEE802.15.4k Standard | — |
gr‑corrsounder | Sept. 13, 2018 | Short description of gr-corrsounder | — |
gr‑guitar | Sept. 12, 2018 | Short description of gr-guitar | — |
gr‑drm | Aug. 22, 2018 | DRM/DRM+ transmitter | — |
gr‑message_tools | May 31, 2018 | None | — |
gr‑fbmc | April 11, 2018 | FBMC PHY Layer for GNU Radio | — |
gr‑ntsc‑rc | March 30, 2018 | 5.8 GHz ammateur drone wireless video feed TX and RX | — |
gr‑radar | March 8, 2018 | GNU Radio Radar Toolbox | — |
gr‑ofdm | March 6, 2018 | A complete OFDM implementation including GUI for reasearch and teaching | — |
gr‑lte | Feb. 20, 2018 | LTE downlink receiver blocks | — |
gr‑signal_exciter | Dec. 6, 2017 | Efficient Wide-band signal aggregation | — |
gr‑eb200 | Oct. 3, 2017 | GNU Radio module to use the R&S EB200 protocol for IQ data | — |
gr‑ysf | Sept. 19, 2017 | None | — |
gr‑lora | July 20, 2017 | An open source implementation of the LoRa CSS PHY | — |
gr‑outernet | July 18, 2017 | Short description of gr-outernet | — |
SUPACARS | June 26, 2017 | None | — |
gr‑mer | June 14, 2017 | An open source implementation of QAM Modulation error measurements in GNU Radio. | — |
gr‑ambe3000 | May 24, 2017 | Uses the NW Digital Radio AMBE USB Dongle to encode/decode audio | — |
gr‑csp | May 13, 2017 | Blocks and python class to deal with Cubesat Space Protocol packets | — |
gr‑bruninga | May 13, 2017 | None | — |
gr‑kiss | May 13, 2017 | Assorted blocks to deal with KISS and AX.25 data | — |
gr‑dvbt | April 24, 2017 | None | — |
libfreesrp | April 16, 2017 | None | — |
gr‑tagutils | April 15, 2017 | None | — |
gr‑nacl | April 10, 2017 | GNU Radio module for data encryption using NaCl library | — |
gr‑eventstream | April 8, 2017 | The event stream scheduler | — |
gr‑pcap | April 2, 2017 | PCAP recording and playback | — |
gr‑fm0 | Feb. 15, 2017 | gr-fm0 only contains a minimal FM0 encoder | — |
gr‑cdma | Dec. 20, 2016 | None | — |
gr‑polaris | Dec. 14, 2016 | OOT Module for DRS Polaris Receiver | — |
gr‑tf | Nov. 5, 2016 | Short description of gr-tf | — |
gr‑flexfft | Oct. 14, 2016 | OOT Module for displaying Flex FFT data | — |
gr‑burst | Oct. 12, 2016 | None | — |
gr‑theano | Oct. 11, 2016 | blocks leveraging the theano library to run code in graphics cards | — |
gr‑mediatools | Oct. 10, 2016 | None | — |
libfec | Oct. 3, 2016 | None | — |
gr‑nordic | Sept. 27, 2016 | Short description of gr-nordic | — |
gr‑rftap | Sept. 22, 2016 | RFtap is a protocol designed to provide RF metadata about packets | — |
gr‑pico | Aug. 15, 2016 | OOT Modules for DRS Picoflexor Single Channel Receiver and Picoflexor Transceiver | — |
gr‑ra_blocks | July 22, 2016 | None | — |
gr‑ale | July 14, 2016 | None | — |
gr‑pyqt | July 12, 2016 | Python QT Plotters and Message Tools Repo | — |
sdr‑tv | July 2, 2016 | None | — |
gr‑psk31 | May 9, 2016 | None | — |
gr‑tpms | March 8, 2016 | None | — |
gr‑dvbt2 | Feb. 8, 2016 | A DVB-T2 transmitter. | — |
gr‑nmea | Jan. 10, 2016 | interface to NMEA and GPSD sources | — |
gr‑lacrosse | Dec. 24, 2015 | None | — |
gr‑rtty | Dec. 21, 2015 | None | — |
gr‑adsb | July 26, 2015 | None | — |
gr‑acars2 | July 16, 2015 | None | — |
GR_RCCar | July 15, 2015 | None | — |
gr‑multimon | June 24, 2015 | None | — |
gr‑streamsink | June 8, 2015 | None | — |
gr‑fsk‑burst | May 31, 2015 | None | — |
gr‑uhdgps | May 28, 2015 | GR Blocks to assist in GPS Data logging with UHD and a GPSDO | — |
gr‑benchmark | April 4, 2015 | a performance measurement tool for GNU Radio | — |
gr‑psk‑burst | April 1, 2015 | None | — |
gr‑mac | Sept. 19, 2014 | None | — |
measurement_toolbox | Aug. 22, 2014 | None | — |
gr‑smithchart | April 19, 2014 | None | — |
gr‑zmqblocks | April 14, 2014 | None | — |
gr‑ldpc | April 8, 2014 | None | — |
grcompat | May 31, 2013 | None | — |
gr‑packetradio | March 2, 2013 | None | — |
gr‑pocsag | Jan. 6, 2013 | None | — |
gr‑smartnet | June 9, 2012 | None | — |