Hardware Plutosdr

plutosdr

ADALM-Pluto — inexpensive full-duplex learning and development SDR

Vendor: Analog Devices

Status: untested — catalogued from documented sources, not yet proven here.

Not maintainer-verified: nobody on this project has run this hardware yet. The two facts are recorded separately on purpose (D-027) — a correct recipe and a tested device are different claims.

What it is

A small full-duplex software defined radio built around an Analog Devices AD9363 transceiver and a Zynq SoC, sold as a learning platform and widely used well beyond that.

What you can do with it

Transmit and receive simultaneously, and run software on the device itself — it boots Linux and appears to the host as a network device.

Setup

Debian 13 does not ship soapysdr-module-plutosdr; it is in unstable only, so on a stable base this needs a non-apt path. The device is usually reached over its USB network interface rather than a /dev node. iio_info -S, from libiio-utils (apt on every target, 2026-09-30), lists the IIO contexts libiio can reach and is the first check that the host sees the board; unmeasured here, since no Pluto is owned.

Known problems

soapysdr-module-plutosdr is sid-only, so it is unavailable from apt on our primary targets. Being a composite device, it does not fit the single-symlink model the rest of this catalog uses.

What is not yet known

No USB identifier confirmed, and the maintainer does not own the hardware to confirm one. The entry is carried anyway because other operators do. The Pluto presents as a composite device — USB networking, mass storage and serial — and which interfaces appear depends on the firmware revision, so a single VID:PID does not describe it in the first place. No Debian package here shipped a matching udev rule. Closing this needs lsusb output from someone holding the board, tagged with its firmware revision.

Who can close it: nobody on this project owns one — an operator who does can close it with one lsusb (how).

Access and permissions

Group membership required: dialout, plugdev — added at install, applies at next login.

Software that makes it useful

libiio-utils, soapysdr-module-plutosdr

Upstream: https://wiki.analog.com/university/tools/pluto