GNU Radio is a free & open-source software development toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement software radios. It can be used with readily-available, low-cost external RF hardware to create software-defined radios, or without hardware in a simulation-like environment. It is widely used in hobbyist, academic, and commercial environments to support both wireless communications research and real-world radio systems.

Please visit the GNU Radio website at https://www.gnuradio.org/ and the wiki at https://wiki.gnuradio.org/. Bugs and feature requests are tracked on GitHub's Issue Tracker. If you have questions about GNU Radio, please search the discuss-gnuradio mailing list archive, as many questions have already been asked and answered. Please also subscribe to the mailing list and post your new questions there.

How to Build GNU Radio

PyBOMBS

PyBOMBS (Python Build Overlay Managed Bundle System) is the recommended method for building and installing GNU Radio. Please see https://github.com/gnuradio/pybombs for detailed instructions. Abbreviated instructions are duplicated below.

1. Install PyBOMBS:

   $ [sudo] pip install PyBOMBS
   

   or

   $ git clone https://github.com/gnuradio/pybombs.git
   $ cd pybombs
   $ sudo python setup.py install
   

2. Add PyBOMBS recipes:

   $ pybombs recipes add gr-recipes git+https://github.com/gnuradio/gr-recipes.git  
   $ pybombs recipes add gr-etcetera git+https://github.com/gnuradio/gr-etcetera.git
   

3. Configure an installation prefix:

   $ pybombs prefix init ~/prefix/default/
   

4. Install GNU Radio:

   $ pybombs install gnuradio
   

5. Run GNU Radio Companion from your new prefix:

   $ source ~/prefix/default/setup_env.sh
   $ gnuradio-companion
   

   or execute it without changing the current environment

   $ pybombs run gnuradio-companion
   

Manual Source Build

Complete build instructions are detailed in the GNU Radio Build Guide. Abbreviated instructions are duplicated below.

1. Ensure that you have satisfied the external dependencies, see GNU Radio Dependencies.

2. Checkout the latest code:

   $ git clone --recursive https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio.git
   

3. Build with CMake:

   $ cd gnuradio
   $ mkdir build
   $ cd build
   $ cmake [OPTIONS] ../
   $ make
   $ make test
   $ sudo make install
   

   Useful [OPTIONS] include setting the install prefix -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<directory to install to> and the build type -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=<type>. Currently, GNU Radio has a "Debug" type that builds with -g -O2 which is useful for debugging the software, and a "Release" type that builds with -O3, which is the default.

PyBOMBS with support of python 3.x

PyBOMBS currently builds GNU Radio with support of python 2.7, so to make it work with python 3.x, instructions are given below.

1. Change the PYTHONPATH line in setup_env.sh, to just 3.x paths.

2. Find the PyBOMBS recipe "gnuradio.lwr" in .pybombs directory, check this for reference

   https://github.com/gnuradio/gr-recipes/blob/master/gnuradio.lwr
   

3. Change the "gitbranch" to "master".

4. In gnuradio.lwr recipe file, add "-DENABLE_CTRLPORT_THRIFT=OFF" in "config_opt".

5. Clear out your prior GR PyBOMBS build(s) and tell PyBOMBS to install via this recipe.

   pybombs install gnuradio
   

Legal Matters

Some files have been changed many times throughout the years. Copyright notices at the top of source files list which years changes have been made. For some files, changes have occurred in many consecutive years. These files may often have the format of a year range (e.g., "2006 - 2011"), which indicates that these files have had copyrightable changes made during each year in the range, inclusive.