[hpsdr] Installing ghpsdr on ubuntu 9.10 netbook/Linux generally - summary

[Erich Heinzle]

this is an updated summary of how to get ghpsdr compiled
and running on a freshly installed and updated installation
of karmic koala ubuntu 9.10 linux, drawing on the README
in the John Melton g0orx/n6lyt ghpsdr distribution, some
advice from John Melton himself, and contains a few extra
tips for those not familiar with subversion.

If you are installing ubuntu from scratch, I would suggest
not enabling home directory encryption, especially on lower
end machines, in order to to minimise CPU overhead.

Additionally, on lower end machines, installling and using a
lighweight windowing manager such as openbox will also reduce
CPU load.


bring up a shell i.e.command prompt

sudo apt-get install subversion

this installs subversion, which allows you to download sourcecode
snapshots from developers, as it not usually installed by default

sudo svn co svn://64.245.179.219/svn/repos_sdr_hpsdr/trunk/N6LYT/ghpsdr

this will place a directory with a snapshot of the current
version of ghpsdr in your home directory called ghpsdr

cd ghpsdr/

now we enter the DttSP directory to make a DttSP library

cd DttSP/

sudo make

with that done, we now go back up into the ghpsdr directory

cd ..

sudo mv libDttSP.a libDttSP.a.old

sudo cp DttSP/libDttSP.a .

this puts the DttSP library you just made into the ghpsdr
directory for the final build process

you'll need to install everything gtk2 using

sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev

or you'll get an error when you finally try to run make along
the lines of

"gtk/gtk.h No such file or directory"

you'll also need to download libusb-1.0 since the version installed
with ubuntu Karmic Koala (v0.1) does not seem to be compatible 

you can download the gzipped or bzipped tarball from

http://sourceforge.net/projects/libusb/files/libusb-1.0/

then

sudo gunzip libusb-1.0.8.tar.gz

or

sudo bunzip2 libusb-1.0.8.tar.bz2

then

sudo tar xvf libusb-1.0.8.tar
cd libusb-1.0.8/
sudo make
sudo make install

this should have built and installed libusb-1.0.x, now  

you will now need to make the computer recognise your new
USB device (The HPSDR), as per the wiki FAQ, i.e.

create a text file, as root, containing:

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb",ATTRS{idVendor}=="fffe",ATTRS{idProduct}=="0007",SYMLINK+="ozy",MODE="666"

called 90-ozy.rules in the directory /etc/udev/rules.d  

you can do this with

cd /etc/udev/rules.d
and running you preferred text editor using sudo
and pasting the above line into it and saving as 90-ozy.rules

now, onto the final build

cd

return to your home directory

cd ghpsdr/

let's try and make ghpsdr

sudo make

this should have built ghpsdr for you. Let's find it:

cd bin

and now we run the newly built binary:

./ghpsdr 

and you should then have the software up and running.

if on running ghpsdr you see a _lot_ of streaming text filling up
your text console, along the lines of:

  Mercury Software version: 0 (0x0)
  Mercury Software version: 29 (0x1D)
  Mercury Software version: 0 (0x0)
  Mercury Software version: 29 (0x1D)
[..some deleted ...]
  Mercury Software version: 0 (0x0)
  Mercury Software version: 29 (0x1D)
  Mercury Software version: 0 (0x0)
  Mercury Software version: 29 (0x1D)
iphone_thread
iphone_thread: listen
iphone_thread: accept
  Mercury Software version: 0 (0x0)
audio_stream_thread
audio_stream_thread: listen
audio_stream_thread: accept
  Mercury Software version: 29 (0x1D)
  Mercury Software version: 0 (0x0)
[...more deleted....]
  Mercury Software version: 29 (0x1D)
  Mercury Software version: 0 (0x0)
  Mercury Software version: 29 (0x1D)
vfoTransmit: 1
vfoTransmit: 0
[.....etc...]

or 

OzyBulkRead read failed -1


You the HPSDR probably isn't being initialised properly
and you should try putting more recent 

ozyfw-sdr1k.hex
Ozy_Janus.rbf

files in ghpsdr/bin

these can be easily obtained from the latest svn for powerSDR

As soon as I replaced these files, ghpsdr worked on my 1.6GHz
netbook with 1GB of RAM, but I had to reduce the frames per second
on the panadaptor and use a 48K sample rate to avoid clicks.

if this doesn't work, try running

./ghpsdr.sh

instead. This will create a ghpsdr.log file in ghpsdr/bin/
which may help you to diagnose the problem.


Regards,

Erich Heinzle
VK5HSE