I, in general, agree with what Alex writes, especially now that MacPorts
provides binary downloads -- no longer requiring projects to be built
from source is a HUGE win for end-users! I continue to work with
developers who make use of GNU Radio (and, plenty of other projects too)
to make sure their project(s) work on OSX, at least to the extent they
are willing to do so. Most devs (such as Alex) are very responsive and
approachable; I have good working rapport with quite a number of devs
out there (both GNU Radio / UHD as well as non-GR/UHD)!
The "in general" part is that if the MacPorts build of Gqrx isn't
working but a 3rd party's build is, using the exact same settings and
hardware, then something's wrong in the former's install and needs to be
fixed. The challenge with fixing something in MacPorts is identifying
where the issue actually lies! The issue might lie with Gqrx (doubtful)
or GNU Radio (also doubtful), or with some dependency (much more
likely), or even a conflict between a MacPorts and system library (quite
likely). Having data beyond "Gqrx hangs after 1 second" can only help us
debug the issue.
I have no issues running Gqrx with my various SDR hardware (HackRF
Jawbreaker, Ettus N210, and some generic RTL-SDR USB dongle), using a
MacBook Pro Retina 2012 running 10.8. I need to get 10.9 and 10.10 boot
disks (or VMs) installed for testing there, but I've heard that Gqrx
works for many folks with those OS versions too (and, various SDR
hardware).
One way to approach this issue would be to send me (and, maybe Alex or
others who are interested) the crash log and/or dmesg log. You might
also be able to install Apple's IOKit-debug frameworks (I think for 10.9
and prior right now; hopefully Apple will release a 10.10 compatible
version soon if not already), which can provide verbose output for USB
data transfers.
I'm happy to try to work with folks experiencing issues with GNU Radio
and/or Gqrx on OSX; but, please also realize that there are current
issues that aren't simple to debug and might not be easily fixable.
Also, there's only so much time in the day for support and debugging
these sorts of issues -- so, patience and perseverance are required by
everyone involved! - MLD