OP25 VirtualBox Project - Run OP25 on Windows 7

[Dark-Sky]

I had mine disconnected due to a lightning storm and hurriedly hooked it back up and was getting the same error as you. I had not pushed the usb connector in all of the way. So it appears to me since you blacklisted all of the recommended modules the issue may lie with your usb port / connectors. I have devices here that I can not plug in on the same usb hub and some devices will not work on a usb 3.0 port. Do you have another port on a different hub you can plug it in to?

Try disconnecting the rtl-sdr and rebooting and after rebooted plug into another hub. Then open up a terminal and type dmesg. You should see something like this:

alarm@alarm apps]$ dmesg
[  260.996774] usb 3-1.1: new high-speed USB device number 3 using xhci-hcd
[  261.113636] usb 3-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=2838
[  261.119202] usb 3-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3

[  261.126543] usb 3-1.1: Product: RTL2838UHIDIR
[  261.130834] usb 3-1.1: Manufacturer: Realtek
[  261.135109] usb 3-1.1: SerialNumber: 00000001

If you do not see something similar it is not getting recognized on your system and could be either port issue or cabling.

 

[boatbod]

You need to blacklist ...2838 as well as the others previously listed.

 

[maus92]

I've added 2838 to the blacklist, rebooted, used different USB ports (no external hubs or cables) - no joy. It seems the RTL devices are not being recognized - they are not listed in the dmesg command, also not in a device manager-type utility I installed. Any more suggestions? Should I try another release of Linux?

 

[Dark-Sky]

I have Mint 19.1 installed on another partition and it works well with op25. A quick search on Intel NUC i5 says that some usb devices will not seat well in the usb port. Do you have a short usb extension cable you can plug in between your dongle and the laptop to test with and try dmesg again? Another shot in the dark is make sure linux-firmware is installed and if it is not install it and reboot:

sudo apt-get install linux-firmware

Front USB Ports Do Not Work on Intel® NUC Kits

 

[boatbod]

Just to be sure, this is what I have in my /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rtl.conf file::

blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu
blacklist rtl2832
blacklist rtl2830
blacklist rtl2838

What do you see if you run 'lsusb'?

boatbod@yoga2 ~/op25/op25/gr-op25_repeater/apps $ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 020: ID 8087:0a2b Intel Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 13d3:5664 IMC Networks
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 001 Device 012: ID 0bda:2838 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL2838 DVB-T
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
boatbod@yoga2 ~/op25/op25/gr-op25_repeater/apps $

Can you run 'osmocom_fft' or does that error out?

 

[maus92]

I have Mint 19.1 installed on another partition and it works well with op25. A quick search on Intel NUC i5 says that some usb devices will not seat well in the usb port. Do you have a short usb extension cable you can plug in between your dongle and the laptop to test with and try dmesg again? Another shot in the dark is make sure linux-firmware is installed and if it is not install it and reboot:

sudo apt-get install linux-firmware

Front USB Ports Do Not Work on Intel® NUC Kits

I'll give this a try, and try a different RTL device. I do use the front ports when running windows (this machine is set up as dual boot,) and Windows didn't have a problem finding the RTL device when running Unitrunker. I'll post what the "device mgr" utilities show.

 

[Dark-Sky]

Don't forget to post the result of lsusb like boatbod said above. Also if you can put your whole dmesq in a text file and post it somewhere where it can be looked at. Run this in a terminal just after a reboot with the dongle attached:

dmesg > dmesg.txt

 

[maus92]

Hey guys, I got it to work. The problem was what Dark Sky alluded to about the front ports on the NUC. When I went back into Windows, the rtl device was not being recognized either, so I tried a short USB extension, and voila! Rebooted back into Linux, and now everything works - I must have either been using a hub or the back ports the last time I used this box with Unitrunker.

 

[boatbod]

Hey guys, I got it to work. The problem was what Dark Sky alluded to about the front ports on the NUC. When I went back into Windows, the rtl device was not being recognized either, so I tried a short USB extension, and voila! Rebooted back into Linux, and now everything works - I must have either been using a hub or the back ports the last time I used this box with Unitrunker.

Interesting info. I've not had that problem with my NUC but maybe that's because I already have short extension cables.

 

[Dark-Sky]

Glad you have it working maus92!!!

Boatbod Question:

I booted into my mint 19.1 install because I remembered that mint does not enable software sources by default to see if that could have a bearing on maus92's problem and discovered that I had not enabled them. I never think about it because arch installs everything and does not break up the packages in to lib / dev packages. The op25 still worked just fine using the web interface which I had installed a while back. The "sudo apt-get build-dep gnuradio" in the install script of course did not install anything but the install script just blew it away and compiled / installed and op25 run ok with the web interface just fine.

What part of op25 requires the gnuradio build sources?

 

[boatbod]

Glad you have it working maus92!!!

Boatbod Question:
What part of op25 requires the gnuradio build sources?

THe op25 install.sh script pulls down most everything it needs. About the only exception is gnuplot-x11 and that is an optional component. gnuradio sources are not required.

 

[KA1RBI]

What part of op25 requires the gnuradio build sources?

There is no part of OP25 that requires the gnuradio SOURCES. However that's not what 'apt-get build-dep' does in any case. (You might be thinking of 'apt-get source'?). OP25 certainly does require the gnuradio includes and libraries.

The reason for having that apt-get build-dep in our install script? It's that OP25 requires a bunch of prerequisite packages to be installed in order for OP25 to compile successfully. Technically instead of the build-dep we could use 'apt-get install' with this (large) enumerated list of packages - but it would be way too much work to chase down and keep up to date, and we know that the list of pre-reqs needed to build gnuradio will also mostly satisfy building OP25...

Was there some problem that this was causing?

Max

 

[Dark-Sky]

MaxWas there some problem that this was causing?

No problem. I did have the sources enabled and the script came back with this when it ran "sudo apt-get build-dep gnuradio":

E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list

So it seemed to me nothing got installed with "sudo apt-get build-dep gnuradio" but op25 worked just fine using the web interface config in the command line.

 

[KA1RBI]

E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list

OK thanks. Different distros of linux seem to vary as to whether source (i.e., "deb-src" lines in /etc/apt/sources.list) are active by default (ubuntu) or whether they need to be manually activated by un-commenting them (ala the rasp pi) prior to running apt-get update.

If the build process indeed finished OK in spite of the build-dep not doing anything - this suggests we might now be able to get rid of it. The build-dep was put in to our install script back around the days of ubuntu 14 ... perhaps the install of gnuradio-dev covers the same territory.

I think the "E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list" message should not appear on ubuntu - and therefore the situation may be different there. It's difficult to test these commands since the install commands only do anything the first time they're run.

So the question is - could the build-dep safely be removed, and if so for all users - ubuntu and raspbian alike?

Max

 

[Dark-Sky]

Thanks Max.

I miss spoke in my last post. I did not have the sources enabled was the reason for the error. I have a clean mint19.1 image saved I could restore and test and disable the build-dep part but I feel pretty sure maus92 did not enable his sources with his fresh mint19.1 install and he says his is working now after correcting his dongle issue.

I run arch linux and all I install on my x64 and my arm devices is basically arch's name equivalents There is no build-dep, dev or lib packages unless that is the packages real world name the author gave them:

gnuradio, gnuradio-osmosdr, rtl-sdr, libuhd, hackrf libitpp (from AUR),
libpcap, cmake (downgraded to version 3.10.3), git, swig, pkgconf, doxygen, python2-numpy,
python2-waitress python2-requests, wireshark-cli, gnuplot, boost and --needed base-devel for development requirements

I only have mint19.1 installed so I can help others that uses a deb based distro with FTA satellite / ATSC reception in another forum.

 

[Dark-Sky]

I restored my clean fresh install mint19.1 image today to test installing op25 from scratch with "sudo apt-get build-dep gnuradio" disabled in the install.sh script. Of course mint does not enable Sources by default but wanted to make sure other things did not get pulled in other than sources.

The only thing I had to add to the other existing program installs in the script was libboost-dev. (I did add on my own wireshark and gnuplot-x11) and I tested op25 in it's original terminal mode and the mode using the web interface and all seemed to be working ok. This is basically the same procedure I used on my Arch linux installs other than arch uses different file names. I have not used ubuntu in a long time but from my experiences in the past I can not see why this would not work with ubuntu also as they seem to pull in the same depends when programs are installed.

 

[marklt1]

Is there a way for OP25 to display or indicate that a P25 Emergency Button has been pressed?
I am guessing it is probably some status-bit set somewhere. I've look through some of the code and couldn't find any reference to this.

 

[boatbod]

Is there a way for OP25 to display or indicate that a P25 Emergency Button has been pressed?
I am guessing it is probably some status-bit set somewhere. I've look through some of the code and couldn't find any reference to this.

It all depends on how the radio is set up; sometimes they are configured to switch to a specific tgid, while other times they remain on the same tgid and just send a message indicating an emergency alarm. Either way it's not a current capability for op25 to show this information because most of the time you can't receive the inbound signaling from the subscriber unit and have to be content watching the responses sent back by the base station.

 

[mmfinkler]

Hello I am having the same error as maus92 was having, I have made the changes he did with negative results.
I am using a SDRPlay device.

lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rtl-sdr.conf
blacklist r820t
blacklist rtl2832
blacklist rtl2830
blacklist rtl2838
blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu

 

[boatbod]

Hello I am having the same error as maus92 was having, I have made the changes he did with negative results.
I am using a SDRPlay device.

lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rtl-sdr.conf
blacklist r820t
blacklist rtl2832
blacklist rtl2830
blacklist rtl2838
blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu

If the dongle doesn't show up in 'lsusb' you may need to enable the device under the Virtualbox "Devices->USB" menu.