Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Wit lab research

After a long time of being Mia, I went back to the wit lab and asked if I could continue research. This morning I entered the lab to find out what I should be doing next. I did come prepared btw. Sam told me I needed Ubuntu so I tried making it work on my Mac as a separate Partition. Unfortunately I wasn't successful. Despite following the online instructions it simply didn't work. My back uphold was to install it via VMware fusion.

VMware fusion installed Ubuntu without a fuss.

When I finally arrived he told me that there was a software I had to install. One of the phd students had the sOftware on a USB. He was there yet and would be there until later in the day.

I assumed that the software was a special software that you install on to Ubuntu .
As it turns out, the USB that the Phd student had was just a installation for Ubuntu .

I totally wasted my time waiting for this USB. I guess it was my fault for not asking what this software was suppose to be.

Since I already had Ubuntu I just had to download gnuradio.

If I had asked more questions and was more vocal about what I had already done, the. I could have saved time. Instead of spending the morning waiting and reading I could have spent it figuring out the gnu radio.

The phd student was named Lin . He helped me install the gnuradio via a script offered by the download website.
The installation was a partial success. It failed when trying to clone
The Git repository containing the gnu radio 3.5.3

After reading documentation of how to install manually without
The script I came to realize two things.
1)Lin downloaded the gnu radio tarball even though he didn't need to
2)the script needed adjusting

The purpose of the script was to automate downloading and installing gnuradio and various other things needed to interface with the usrp device.

Lin didnt not have to download the tarball. He could have simple placed the script in an empty folder and ran the scripts and it would have been A-O-K

When the Git failed at check out I asked Sam
for some help but he didnt quite understand the
Problem so he suggested trying an older version.

It wasn't correct but I helpped me figure out the real
Problem. In th script it clones the latest repository from
Git. The URL called by the script wasn't working.
Luckily the gnu radio website offered an alternative
Link. After changing the script to call the alternate
URL, the installation completed without a complaint.

The moral of the story is to never assume.
If you choose to assume, be vocal about what your assumption
Was. That way you would get a complete understanding .

Ps
They told me that the gnu radio didnt install when they tried Ubuntu on a virtual machine.
I think the real problem was in the script. Since Sam was familiar
With the error message he got about Git failing at check out,
I theorize that it was the same message he got long
Ago. This message was probably the same one that
Stopped them from successfully installing the gnu radio
Software on the ubuntu virtual machine.
It's only a guess though.... I could be totally wrong.

Pss
There is a way for osx to run the gnu radio. You have to use
FINK or MACPORTS. I will attempt it with my snow leopard partition.

1 comment:

  1. After partitioning my hard drive I successfully installed ubuntu. No vmware. I i ran the build_gnuradio script and it ended by telling me this

    ********************************************************************************
    This script has just modified /etc/group to place your userid '('$USER')' into group 'usrp'
    In order for this change to take effect, you will need to log-out and log back
    in again. You will not be able to access your USRP1 device until you do this.

    If you wish to allow others on your system to use the USRP1 device, you will need to use:

    sudo usermod -a -G usrp userid

    For each userid you wish to allow access to the usrp

    ********************************************************************************

    Further
    Done function mod_groups at: Sat May 19 17:51:50 PDT 2012
    Starting function mod_udev at: Sat May 19 17:51:50 PDT 2012
    Done function mod_udev at: Sat May 19 17:51:50 PDT 2012
    Starting function mod_sysctl at: Sat May 19 17:51:50 PDT 2012
    Applying updates to /etc/sysctl.conf
    Group 'usrp' now has real-time scheduling privileges
    You will need to log-out and back in again for this to
    take effect
    Done function mod_sysctl at: Sat May 19 17:51:50 PDT 2012
    Starting function pythonpath at: Sat May 19 17:51:50 PDT 2012


    ************************************************************
    You should probably set your PYTHONPATH to:

    /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages

    Using:

    export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages

    in your .bashrc or equivalent file prior to attempting to run
    any Gnu Radio applications or Gnu Radio Companion.
    *************************************************************

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