FreeSRP Quick Start

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Installing libfreesrp

libfreesrp is a library that provides access to the FreeSRP. It is required for using the FreeSRP in GNU Radio, as the gr-osmosdr needs it to provide support for the FreeSRP. Additionally, libfreesrp comes with useful command-line utilities.

There are packages for libfreesrp on Ubuntu. On other systems, you will have to build it from source.

Ubuntu

On Ubuntu 14.04, 16.06 and 16.10, you can install libfreesrp from the FreeSRP PPA as follows: 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:llb/freesrp
sudo apt update
sudo apt install libfreesrp

Building from source

If libfreesrp is not available as a prebuilt package for your system, or you want to get the latest changes present in the libfreesrp Git repository, you will have to build libfreesrp from source.

To build from source, you need to install the following dependencies first:

  • GNU Make and GCC (Debian: apt install build-essential, Fedora: dnf install @development-tools)
  • CMake (Debian: apt install cmake, Fedora: dnf install cmake)
  • libusb 1.0 (Debian: apt install libusb-1.0-0-dev, Fedora: dnf install libusb1-devel)
  • Boost (Debian: apt install libboost-all-dev, Fedora: dnf install boost-devel)
  • Now, get the source code:
git clone https://github.com/FreeSRP/libfreesrp.git

And build the library: 

cd libfreesrp
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

Finally, install it: 

make install  # Run this as root

Getting the firmware

In addition to libfreesrp, you will have to download firmware for the FreeSRP’s FX3 microcontroller and a bitstream for the FreeSRP’s FPGA. This is required because the FreeSRP hardware does not come preprogrammed by default, and needs to be programmed before its first use. You will also want to repeat this process to upgrade your firmware every time improved versions are available.

On Ubuntu, the freesrp-firmware package provides the latest firmware and FPGA bitstream. On other systems, you will have to download it manually.

Ubuntu

Assuming you already added the FreeSRP PPA as shown above (when installing libfreesrp), you can now also install the firmware by running: 

sudo apt install freesrp-firmware

Manual firmware download

You can download the firmware here: [coming soon]

Testing your FreeSRP

Now, you are ready to verify you can interface with your FreeSRP. Plug the FreeSRP into a USB 3.0 port on your computer and run: 

freesrp-ctl --fx3 --fpga

If everything is installed correctly, after a few seconds you will see: 

Sucessfully uploaded FreeSRP firmware to FX3
Found FreeSRP
Loading FPGA with '.freesrp/fpga.bin'
FPGA configured successfully
Connected to FreeSRP
Version: FX3 v0.1.0, FPGA v0.1.0

This means programming the FreeSRP was successful.

Next steps

To actually do anything useful with your FreeSRP now, you will probably want to install GNU Radio. See Setting up GNU Radio for use with the FreeSRP for a guide on setting it up. You can also download Baudline and use it with freesrp-io, see Using the FreeSRP with Baudline for that.

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