Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Question UHD, WINDOWS

[Nick Foster]

On Tue, 2011-02-15 at 17:41 -0800, Florian Eugen wrote:
> Hi,
>  
>    As I mentioned a few times here, I really can't install that GNU
> Radio in Windows environment (I followed all steps found in those
> descriptions regarding, how to install it with MinGW or CygWin). So I
> have to give it up and try to focuse on other solutions like UHD or
> maybe others. What I want to do is to make some simple data transfers
> on different frequencies, basic communication with some modules made
> by me. Really I don't need all that python stuff and all those
> dependencies problems. I was even thinking to control USRP from my
> application, it would be much faster than using Python, but how to
> write the firmware into the FPGA. OK, I got it, through that nice USB
> transceiver. After installing the USB driver when the USRP1 is
> connected to the PC it shows up the device with that FFFE VID and 0002
> PID. Could anybody tell me what to do from this point to be able to
> program the firmware into the FPGA or maybe to change the firmware of
> the EZ-USB FX2 transceiver? I suppose after I will program the rbf
> file into the FPGA I could start to get and set things, send orders to
> the board to set frequency, decimation, sampling rate or read/write
> raw data. Commands to drive the USRP1 and my WBX daughterboard I could
> get from written source code (ex:
> http://gnuradio.org/redmine/repositories/entry/gnuradio/usrp/host/lib/db_wbxng.cc),
>  anyway I'll start to make the whole program with the help of FreePascal.
>  
>   A second alternative would be to use UHD (documentation is very
> poor) because it has support for USRP1, but after I read that I would
> have to get I don't know what program to do something with the source
> code and to compile the UHD source code and other steps I started to
> think if it's a good idea, maybe I will have the same problems
> encountered when installing GNU Radio on Windows OS, why couldn't they
> provide a simple DLL file for using it on all Win OS's. Could anybody
> tell me how does UHD behave in Win OS? It's easy to use it? 

I understand that it can be frustrating to get started in a completely
new system where the learning curve is fairly steep. However, don't give
up yet. It is probably worth getting Gnuradio installed via Cygwin in
order to accomplish what you're trying to do without reinventing the
wheel. And it is certainly less painful to figure out how to install UHD
than it is to rewrite it from scratch. You might even consider
installing Ubuntu or another Linux distribution, even in a virtual
machine, and running Gnuradio from a Linux environment. Gnuradio tends
to be better-supported on Linux, and the community of users who can help
you is larger.

UHD and Gnuradio are not alternatives to each other, they are
complementary. UHD is for getting samples from your USRP onto your
computer. Gnuradio is for doing something useful with those samples.

At any rate, you will have much more success getting help with your
Gnuradio and UHD problems if you can describe the problem you are having
in detail, with the procedure you have followed so far, and with
cut-and-paste results.

--n


>  
> As a final answer, based on my description I do expect too much from
> this USRP1+WBX hardware or there are other people heaving the same
> problems?
>  
> Thank you very much.
>  
>  
> Best regards,
> Florian Eugen.
> 
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