br0adband
Member
Well, if I didn't do it myself I would probably believe it but think it's somewhat of a waste considering it's a Windows application but, as luck would have it now that Mono is available for .NET 4.6 projects it is possible to run SDR# not only on Linux but also on OSX. While I don't happen to have a Mac at this point, I can and do have Linux Mint installed primarily for having access to GNURadio and OP25 for P25 Phase I and II decoding duties, and also Gqrx for basic monitoring duties (extremely basic but it's functional and it works well actually).
When I read an article on the front page of RTL-SDR.com the other day, I noted that the content (which was about how SDR# has moved to using .NET 4.6) also mentioned the tidbit about Mono and running SDR# on Linux and I figured "Ok, let's see if this actually works to any sufficient degree."
I started clean (because I had a new hard drive that just came in this morning) and installed Linux Mint 17.2 MATE edition, then updated it fully, made sure the build-essentials were updated, used pybombs to install GNURadio/OP25/Gqrx and made the necessary additions for the udevrules and whatnot. Then I followed the instructions from the actual page . One caveat: just because rtlsdr is installed with pybombs as part of that process the driver doesn't appear to work with SDR#, at least not for me, so I did follow the instructions for the cmake version and used that which did also have an error but it was related to the device being recognized but busy so I decided to reboot (I don't know all the ins and outs of Linux in terms of removing a kernel module or whatever process could have resolved the issue without a reboot, it was just easier in this respect for me).
And that "fixed" the issue. I then fired up SDR# and set the necessary items for sampling rate, gain, stepping size, mode, etc and boom, it works, and here's a screenshot of it in action:
Now at this point some things of note:
- resizing the window in any respect can wreck the way it's displayed, it ain't perfect so be aware. I found out that if I start it, resize the window to my liking (which wrecks some of the visual aspects in various ways), then restart it when it comes back up it'll be what I wanted without the visual issues. I'm sure this is an issue with using Mono in some respect, perhaps in time things will improve
- as you can see on some of the drop-down menu items like Squelch and Order that the actual setting value being displayed is either cut off to some degree or not even visible at all, it took me a minute to figure it out so I set things basically by deleting everything inside the entry box - I pressed the right arrow key and held it down to get to the far right position then used the Delete key for a few seconds, then I just blindly typed the amount I wanted and that was that. Again, a visual interface issue that might get better in time
- the whole interface has a lag of about .75 seconds to most anything I do, especially the tuning but now that I know this is happening I can work with it. It could be just because of my particular setup, I can't say, I don't own the most powerful laptop in the world so who knows, this i5 of mine gets the job done
- the waterfall, oh boy, the waterfall. I personally prefer to see nothing but signals so it's somewhat frustrating having to stare at the "wall of yellow" scrolling by but no matter what I do the settings currently just don't allow me to adjust things to a point where it's the same as it is (or can be) on Windows. Not sure if this can be resolved, it probably can but because this is such a new thing (this isn't like trying to use Wine or Crossover or something to get a Windows app running) I certainly hope at some point the Linux situation will allow me to run SDR# pretty much exactly the same as I do on Windows
- audio is fine, no problems noted, audio recording works great as well with the default audio recorder in SDR#
And yes, I'm aware that in the 800 MHz range the stepping size is 12.5 kHz but in the screenshot I have it set for 5 - I had just jumped to that frequency from monitoring the VHF airband when I snapped the screenshot but luckily that frequency was a proper multipled of 12.5 kHz anyway.
But it most definitely works. I haven't installed all the plugins I typically use with SDR# but I have no reason to think they won't work exactly as expected. It's pretty cool to be able to use SDR# along with all the GNURadio related tools llke OP25 and Gqrx now on the same OS and not have to resort to dual booting. It's pretty obvious that for a variety of reasons running those Linux-based tools inside a virtual machine has not been successful for anyone so far.
This is a step in the right direction, in my opinion, and a very cool thing overall. There are instructions also for getting SDR# functional on OSX, I may have to attempt that at some point when I get my hands on a Mac and see how it works out.
When I read an article on the front page of RTL-SDR.com the other day, I noted that the content (which was about how SDR# has moved to using .NET 4.6) also mentioned the tidbit about Mono and running SDR# on Linux and I figured "Ok, let's see if this actually works to any sufficient degree."
I started clean (because I had a new hard drive that just came in this morning) and installed Linux Mint 17.2 MATE edition, then updated it fully, made sure the build-essentials were updated, used pybombs to install GNURadio/OP25/Gqrx and made the necessary additions for the udevrules and whatnot. Then I followed the instructions from the actual page . One caveat: just because rtlsdr is installed with pybombs as part of that process the driver doesn't appear to work with SDR#, at least not for me, so I did follow the instructions for the cmake version and used that which did also have an error but it was related to the device being recognized but busy so I decided to reboot (I don't know all the ins and outs of Linux in terms of removing a kernel module or whatever process could have resolved the issue without a reboot, it was just easier in this respect for me).
And that "fixed" the issue. I then fired up SDR# and set the necessary items for sampling rate, gain, stepping size, mode, etc and boom, it works, and here's a screenshot of it in action:
Now at this point some things of note:
- resizing the window in any respect can wreck the way it's displayed, it ain't perfect so be aware. I found out that if I start it, resize the window to my liking (which wrecks some of the visual aspects in various ways), then restart it when it comes back up it'll be what I wanted without the visual issues. I'm sure this is an issue with using Mono in some respect, perhaps in time things will improve
- as you can see on some of the drop-down menu items like Squelch and Order that the actual setting value being displayed is either cut off to some degree or not even visible at all, it took me a minute to figure it out so I set things basically by deleting everything inside the entry box - I pressed the right arrow key and held it down to get to the far right position then used the Delete key for a few seconds, then I just blindly typed the amount I wanted and that was that. Again, a visual interface issue that might get better in time
- the whole interface has a lag of about .75 seconds to most anything I do, especially the tuning but now that I know this is happening I can work with it. It could be just because of my particular setup, I can't say, I don't own the most powerful laptop in the world so who knows, this i5 of mine gets the job done
- the waterfall, oh boy, the waterfall. I personally prefer to see nothing but signals so it's somewhat frustrating having to stare at the "wall of yellow" scrolling by but no matter what I do the settings currently just don't allow me to adjust things to a point where it's the same as it is (or can be) on Windows. Not sure if this can be resolved, it probably can but because this is such a new thing (this isn't like trying to use Wine or Crossover or something to get a Windows app running) I certainly hope at some point the Linux situation will allow me to run SDR# pretty much exactly the same as I do on Windows
- audio is fine, no problems noted, audio recording works great as well with the default audio recorder in SDR#
And yes, I'm aware that in the 800 MHz range the stepping size is 12.5 kHz but in the screenshot I have it set for 5 - I had just jumped to that frequency from monitoring the VHF airband when I snapped the screenshot but luckily that frequency was a proper multipled of 12.5 kHz anyway.
But it most definitely works. I haven't installed all the plugins I typically use with SDR# but I have no reason to think they won't work exactly as expected. It's pretty cool to be able to use SDR# along with all the GNURadio related tools llke OP25 and Gqrx now on the same OS and not have to resort to dual booting. It's pretty obvious that for a variety of reasons running those Linux-based tools inside a virtual machine has not been successful for anyone so far.
This is a step in the right direction, in my opinion, and a very cool thing overall. There are instructions also for getting SDR# functional on OSX, I may have to attempt that at some point when I get my hands on a Mac and see how it works out.
