How to add Ubuntu 20.04 to the PPA offering

[David Ranch]

Hello Alex, Everyone,

I am curious what it would take to get Ubuntu 20.04 added to the LTS PPA at https://gqrx.dk/download/install-ubuntu ?  I've previously built and packaged all of GnuRadio, grosomosdr, libarispy, etc for Centos6 so I don't think it would to too much work to get this new version working.  Is anyone willing to work on this?  If not, is anyone willing to allow me access to give it a try (hopefully also with tips of how to get started on doing a PPA)?

--David

KI6ZHD

[Christopher KB3CS]

what's wrong with the AppImage? (Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS here)

[David Ranch]

I see the message from k1jbd was deleted but his issue was that u20.10 is also not supported in the PPA in addition to u20.04 support missing.  Back to KB3CS's point, yes, I suppose AppImage could be considered to solve my issue but it doesn't solve other needs/wants for say other use of the included dependencies say GnuRadio Companion, etc.  If the intent moving forward will be to *only* make pre-built binaries available AppImages, I think it would be best to mention this on the main Gqrx website.

--David
KI6ZHD

[David Ranch]

I can confirm that the current Gqrx AppImage does work on Ubuntu 20.04 with my AirSpy SDR after I installed the required Airspy libraries (available via "apt").  Very nice!  The problem I have here is that this AppImage only let's Gqrx run and it doesn't expose any of the included GnuRadio, GrOSMO, etc. stuff so I'm back to the PPA discussion point.  It looks like Alex C runs the PPA ( https://launchpad.net/~gqrx ) and I'm curious if he would be willing to either work on adding 20.04 or accept help on getting it added.

--David

KI6ZHD

[Robin Gape]

David,

I suspect that you are more likely to get a reply from Alex if you
contact him directly. It might also be worth while talking to Clayton
Smith (https://github.com/argilo), who would appear to have been
principal instigator of most of the recent changes to GQRX.

Alex was grateful for the help on GQRX, and may well be grateful for
assistance with the PPA. (If COVID gets under control, I might be in a
position to assist in that. The consequences of COVID result, for me, in
less, rather than more, free time!)

HTH, Stay Safe,

Robin, G8DQX

[Alexandru Csete]

Hi David,

Gqrx only needs a small subset of the GNU Radio runtime libraries and only those are included in the AppImage. If you need the full GNU Radio package with the graphical editor, I suggest you try the package that is available in the Ubuntu repository. I think this version is already quite recent and sufficient for most users.

Having said that, I'd be happy to grant PAA access to other people who wish to keep the gqrx PPA up to date. However, I don't think the Gqrx PPA should include GNU Radio because the GNU Radio package in Ubuntu 20.04 and later is recent enough for gqrx, and because the GN_U Radio project now maintains their own PPA, see https://wiki.gnuradio.org/index.php/InstallingGR#Ubuntu_PPA_Installation

Cheers

Alex

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[David Ranch]

Hello Alex,

Thanks for the reply.  Got it around the use of GnuRadio from Ubuntu's repos.  My only concern here is if Ubuntu compiled it in for all the various hardware support people might need (I need AirSpy).  I know much of that support is elsewhere in say in the grosmo and soapy components but I'm just calling that out as there can be dependency games.   If you're willing to give me access to the PPA, I can give it a try to bring in support for the newer OSes.  Since I have you, two more questions:

   1. I see that Ubuntu 20.04 and 20.10 both use GnuRadio 3.8.1 but just for clarity, is Gqrx compatible with GnuRadio 3.9.0 yet?

   2. For the AppImage users, how are people expected to run the volk_profile optimization step?  Is it not needed?  If so, it might be good to add that to the Gqrx doc at https://gqrx.dk/download/install-ubuntu

--David

KI6ZHD

[Richard Bown]

hi

try installing

soapysdr-module-airspy

HTH

Richard