Which OS for SDR

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chiefley
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2021 12:14 am

Which OS for SDR

Post by chiefley » Wed Nov 24, 2021 4:00 am

I just purchased an RP 122-16, which I plan to use for amateur radio SDR experiments. I am familiar with Pavel's offering and I will probably be running that at first. But my goal is to become proficient at DSP on the FPGA and in C.

I have been in software development for about 55 years now, but somehow managed to avoid using Unix/Linux very much at all So I have somewhat of a learning curve for that as well.

My question are all about the various flavors of Linux.

1) Which OS is RP using in their distribution? Debian or Ubuntu or something else?
2) Which OS might be best for me considering my inexperience?
3) I notice Pavel uses a lightweight Linux called Alpine. Is Alpine required for his SDR software, or is it OS agnostic?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.
Chiefley

pavel
Posts: 789
Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 5:22 pm

Re: Which OS for SDR

Post by pavel » Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:05 am

chiefley wrote:
Wed Nov 24, 2021 4:00 am
1) Which OS is RP using in their distribution? Debian or Ubuntu or something else?
Ubuntu.
chiefley wrote:
Wed Nov 24, 2021 4:00 am
2) Which OS might be best for me considering my inexperience?
Any of them should be OK.

Alpine Linux has fewer components and the components are easier to understand.
chiefley wrote:
Wed Nov 24, 2021 4:00 am
3) I notice Pavel uses a lightweight Linux called Alpine. Is Alpine required for his SDR software, or is it OS agnostic?
Some SDR applications are OS agnostic and can be installed via the application marketplace on the OS provided by Red Pitaya developers.

Some other SDR applications require features that are currently only available on my SD card image based on Alpine Linux.

However, the 122-16 board is not supported by the application marketplace. The only way to run SDR applications on the 122-16 board is to use my SD card image based on Alpine Linux.

chiefley
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2021 12:14 am

Re: Which OS for SDR

Post by chiefley » Wed Nov 24, 2021 3:37 pm

Pavel,
Thanks very much for the reply. Reading more about Alpine it looks like the right choice for a server-like SDR. I will go with your distribution and learn from all the work you have done.

Chiefley

Xerox
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2021 5:41 pm

Re: Which OS for SDR

Post by Xerox » Mon Dec 06, 2021 12:43 pm

What’s the difference between original (shipped) SDR software and the one(s) found in Pavel GitHub pages ?
I’m interested in RX only SDR, what do you suggest ?

pavel
Posts: 789
Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 5:22 pm

Re: Which OS for SDR

Post by pavel » Mon Dec 06, 2021 1:42 pm

Xerox wrote:
Mon Dec 06, 2021 12:43 pm
I’m interested in RX only SDR, what do you suggest ?
You mentioned in your other post that your board model is SDRlab 122-16. If it's so, then the only easy way to run my SDR applications on this board is to use my SD card image based on Alpine Linux. The Red Pitaya documentation at the following link also confirms this:
https://redpitaya.readthedocs.io/en/lat ... dApps.html

Xerox
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2021 5:41 pm

Re: Which OS for SDR

Post by Xerox » Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:38 pm

Thanks for info.
Despite I have few experience with Beaglebone, Raspberry etc. I'm completely new to Red Pitaya (it's still boxed :oops: ) Your note ( http://pavel-demin.github.io/red-pitaya ... dr-122-88/ ) says Copy the contents of the SD card image zip file to a micro SD card
Has it to be an already running bootable SD ? Copy is usually not enough for burning a bootable OS sdcard, that is achievable by burn with tools like win32diskimage, dd if= of= or other methods (like explained in https://redpitaya.readthedocs.io/en/lat ... Dcard.html ).

Please forgive my noob inexperience an let me know.
Thank you

pavel
Posts: 789
Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 5:22 pm

Re: Which OS for SDR

Post by pavel » Mon Dec 06, 2021 7:15 pm

Xerox wrote:
Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:38 pm
Has it to be an already running bootable SD ?
No.

The installation procedure is intended to be very simple and accessible. Please do not try to read between the lines.

The files and directories from the zip file should be copied like normal files and directories without using special tools.

The boot image is in the boot.bin file and the boot loader on the ZYNQ chip is able to read this file from the FAT32 file system.

Usually, I recommend using a freshly unpacked factory formatted (single partition, FAT32 file system) micro SD card.

If the micro SD card has already been partitioned and formatted for other purposes, it needs to be reformatted to have its first partition with FAT32 file system. The size of this partition should be large enough to contain all of the files and directories from the zip file. 200 MB should be enough.

I think it should be also possible to find an empty SD card image with a single FAT32 partition and write this image instead of using partitioning and formatting commands. Here is a link to a repository with several empty SD card images:

https://github.com/procount/fat32images

Xerox
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2021 5:41 pm

Re: Which OS for SDR

Post by Xerox » Mon Dec 06, 2021 9:42 pm

Absolutely clear !
I’ll start to play , Thank you

Xerox
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2021 5:41 pm

Re: Which OS for SDR

Post by Xerox » Tue Dec 07, 2021 10:26 pm

All is working fine,

What's the method (on your version) to switch to eth0 static ip address ?

Thank you

waterwin2
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jan 15, 2021 7:59 pm

Re: Which OS for SDR

Post by waterwin2 » Wed Dec 08, 2021 10:22 am

Network settings are explained here :

http://pavel-demin.github.io/red-pitaya-notes/alpine/

Network configuration
Wi-Fi is by default configured in hotspot mode with the network name (SSID) and password both set to RedPitaya. When in hotspot mode, the IP address of Red Pitaya is 192.168.42.1.

The wired interface is by default configured to request an IP address via DHCP. If no IP address is provided by a DHCP server, then the wired interface falls back to a static IP address 192.168.1.100.

The configuration of the IP addresses is in /etc/dhcpcd.conf. More information about /etc/dhcpcd.conf can be found at this link.

From systems with enabled DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD), Red Pitaya can be accessed as rp-f0xxxx.local, where f0xxxx are the last 6 characters from the MAC address written on the Ethernet connector.

In the local networks with enabled local DNS, Red Pitaya can also be accessed as rp-f0xxxx.

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