Install GNU Radio with cygwin

The installation of the GNU radio software in a windows environment with cygwin is described in this page:

1. Cygwin

1.1. Download cygwin

Cygwin is a free software that runs on Windows and emulate a Linux environment. The software can be found here.

1.2. Packages selection

When the installation of cygwin starts (or by starting again the setup programme), the package to install/remove/update can be chosed:

For the GNU Radio software, you need to select the following packages:

• autoconf
• automake1.10
• binutils 20080624-2
• boost-devel
• cppunit (1.12.0 or later required)
• gcc-g++ (version 3.4.4-2 or later preferred)
• guile
• libtool (version 2.2 or later)
• libusb-win32
• make
• patch
• pkg-config
• python (version 2.5 or later)
• subversion
• swig (version 1.3.31 or later)

The installation of these packages is done by the cygwin setup program.

2. Installation of additionnal librairies

The following librairies also need to be installed, but are not available as cygwin package. You need to download them and install them manually under cygwin.

• FFTW
• wxPython
• NumPy
• SDCC

2.1. Installation of FFTW

Download the source archive here (select version 3.1.2).
Copy the archive in the directory /usr/src, and use the following commands:

2.2. Installation of wxPython

You first need to update the configuration of python:
Edit the file /usr/lib/python2.5/distutils/cygwinccompiler.py
and change the string "(\d+\.\d+(\.\d+)*)"to "(\d+\.\d+(\.(\d+))?([ab](\d+))?)" in three places.

Download the wxWidgets and wxPython source code here and copy the archive to folder /usr/scr.


At this point, you need to edit the file
bld/lib/wx/include/msw-ansi-release-2.8/wx/setup.h
to add the line
#define wxUSE_DATEPICKCTRL_GENERIC 1
after the line
#define wxUSE_DATEPICKCTRL 1
After that, go on the installation of wxPython:

Test the installation with commands:
To finish, you need to tell python where to find wxPython. You can therefore use the following command:
You can add this line into the file /etc/profile. Otherwise you will need to write it again each time you want to use GNURadio.

2.3. Installation of NumPy

Download the source of NumPy here. As previously, copy the archive to /usr/src/.

2.4. Installation of SDCC

SDCC can be installed thanks to a windows binary distribution. You can hence download sdcc-2.6.0-setup.exe and launch the install program as a windows software. To check of all went perfectly, you can try the command: If a PATH is returned, the install process has well worked (otherwise try to close and restart cygwin).

3. Installation of GNU Radio

To finish, you need to install the GNU Radio software and to install the USRP driver. The source version can be download from here.

In the directory of your choice, decompress the archive:

To install the USRP driver, you can check this page.

Everything should work now ! You can test our first GNU Radio scheme.

4. Troubleshooting

4.1. Library issue

If you have the error:
can't import gr
or
can't import gunradio
when you execute python script, you need to check that the gnuradio library is in your python path. To do that, you can do (at the cygwin prompt): and check if the path where GNU Radio is installed is in this list (probably /usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages). If not, edit your file /etc/profile, and add the lines (near the beginning of the file)

4.2. USRP not found

If you get the message:
unable to find USRP #0
despite you are sure it is correctly plugged, and you have tried to launch your script twice, you don't have the correct drivers installed. See this page.