If you have questions about GNSS-SDR, please [subscribe to the gnss-sdr-developers mailing list](http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gnss-sdr-developers "Subscribe to the gnss-sdr-developers mailing list" ) and post your questions there.
This section describes how to set up the compilation environment in GNU/Linux or Mac OS X, and to build GNSS-SDR. See also [our Building Guide](http://gnss-sdr.org/documentation/building-guide "GNSS-SDR's Building Guide").
Tested distributions: Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, 13.04, 13.10 and 14.04 (32 and 64 bits), Debian 6.0.6 and 7.2, Fedora 18, 19 and 20 and openSUSE 13.1 (newer versions should work, too).
Downloading, building and installing [GNU Radio](http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki "GNU Radio's Homepage") and all its dependencies is not a simple task. We recommend to use [PyBOMBS](http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/pybombs/wiki) (Python Build Overlay Managed Bundle System), the GNU Radio install management system that automatically does all the work for you. In a terminal, type:
You can safely accept the default options but for ```prefix```. We recommend to put ```/usr/local``` there. After the configuration, you should get something similar to:
Then, you are ready to download and install [UHD](http://files.ettus.com/uhd_docs/manual/html/) (the Universal Hardware Driver), GNU Radio and all their required dependencies by doing:
This can take some time (up to two hours to complete, depending on your system), and installs the latest versions of the Universal Hardware Driver (UHD) and GNU Radio in your system, including all their dependencies.
In case you do not want to use PyBOMBS and prefer to build and install GNU Radio manually from source, follow instructions at the [GNU Radio Build Guide](http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/BuildGuide).
The full stop separated from "cmake" by a space is important. [CMake](http://www.cmake.org/ "CMake's Homepage") will figure out what other libraries are currently installed and will modify Armadillo's configuration correspondingly. CMake will also generate a run-time armadillo library, which is a combined alias for all the relevant libraries present on your system (eg. BLAS, LAPACK and ATLAS).
Please **DO NOT install** gtest (do *not* type ```sudo make install```). Every user needs to compile his tests using the same compiler flags used to compile the installed Google Test libraries; otherwise he may run into undefined behaviors (i.e. the tests can behave strangely and may even crash for no obvious reasons). The reason is that C++ has this thing called the One-Definition Rule: if two C++ source files contain different definitions of the same class/function/variable, and you link them together, you violate the rule. The linker may or may not catch the error (in many cases it is not required by the C++ standard to catch the violation). If it does not, you get strange run-time behaviors that are unexpected and hard to debug. If you compile Google Test and your test code using different compiler flags, they may see different definitions of the same class/function/variable (e.g. due to the use of ```#if``` in Google Test). Therefore, for your sanity, we recommend to avoid installing pre-compiled Google Test libraries. Instead, each project should compile Google Test itself such that it can be sure that the same flags are used for both Google Test and the tests. The building system of GNSS-SDR does the compilation and linking of gtest its own tests; it is only required that you tell the system where the gtest folder that you downloaded resides. Just add to your ```$HOME/.bashrc``` file the following line:
changing /home/username/gtest-1.7.0 by the actual directory where you downloaded gtest. Again, it is recommended to add this line to your ```$HOME/.bashrc``` file.
In order to gain access to USB ports, gnss-sdr should be used as root. In addition, the driver requires access to the GN3S firmware binary file. It should be available in the same path where the application is called.
GNSS-SDR comes with a pre-compiled custom GN3S firmware available at gnss-sdr/firmware/GN3S_v2/bin/gn3s_firmware.ihx. Please copy this file to the application path. The GNSS-SDR default path is gnss-sdr/install
from the gnss-sdr/build folder. This will generate HTML documentation that can be retrieved pointing your browser of preference to gnss-sdr/docs/html/index.html.
If a LaTeX installation is detected in your system,
will create a PDF manual at gnss-sdr/docs/GNSS-SDR_manual.pdf. Please note that the PDF generation requires some fonts to be installed on the host system. In Ubuntu 12.10, those fonts do not come by default. You can install them by doing:
By default, CMake will build the Release version, meaning that the compiler will generate a faster, optimized executable. This is the recommended build type when using a RF front-end and you need to attain real time. If you are working with a file (and thus without real-time constraints), you may want to obtain more information about the internals of the receiver, as well as more fine-grained logging. This can be done by building the Debug version, by doing:
Then, [install Macports](http://www.macports.org/install.php). If you are upgrading from a previous installation, please follow the [migration rules](http://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration).
If you still have not installed [Xcode](http://developer.apple.com/xcode/), do it now from the App Store (it's free). Once installed, download and install the command line tools:
The libraries [Gflags](http://code.google.com/p/gflags/ "Gflags' Homepage") and [Glog](http://code.google.com/p/google-glog/ "Glog's Homepage") should be installed manually, and in that particular order (same steps as above). If they are not already installed
when building GNSS-SDR, [CMake](http://www.cmake.org/ "CMake's Homepage") will download, build and link them statically for you when doing ```make```, but they will not remain installed in the system.
If you cloned GNSS-SDR some days ago, it is possible that some developer has updated files at the Git repository. You can update your working copy by doing:
If you are interested in contributing to the development of GNSS-SDR, please check out [how to do it](http://gnss-sdr.org/documentation/how-contribute-source-code "How to contribute to GNSS-SDR source code").
There is a more controlled way to upgrade your repository, which is to use the Git commands ```fetch``` and ```merge```, as described [here](http://gnss-sdr.org/source-code).
1. The signal file can be easily recorded using the GNU Radio file sink in ```gr_complex<float>``` mode.
2. You will need a GPS active antenna, a [USRP](http://www.ettus.com/product) and a suitable USRP daughter board to receive GPS L1 C/A signals. GNSS-SDR require to have at least 2 MHz of bandwidth in 1.57542 GHz. (remember to enable the DC bias with the daughter board jumper).
3. The easiest way to capture a signal file is to use the GNU Radio Companion GUI. Only two blocks are needed: a USRP signal source connected to complex float file sink. You need to tune the USRP central frequency and decimation factor using USRP signal source properties box. We suggest using a decimation factor of 20 if you use the USRP2. This will give you 100/20 = 5 MSPS which will be enough to receive GPS L1 C/A signals. The front-end gain should also be configured. In our test with the DBSRX2 we obtained good results with ```G=50```.
4. Capture at least 80 seconds of signal in open sky conditions. During the process, be aware of USRP driver buffer underuns messages. If your hard disk is not fast enough to write data at this speed you can capture to a virtual RAM drive. 80 seconds of signal at 5 MSPS occupies less than 3 Gbytes using ```gr_complex<float>```.
5. If you have no access to a RF front-end, you can download a sample raw data file (that contains GPS and Galileo signals) from [here](http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnss-sdr/files/data/).
4. Run the receiver from the install directory. The program reports the current status in text mode, directly to the terminal window. If all goes well, and GNSS-SDR is able to successfully track an decode at least 4 satellites, you will get PVT fixes. The program will write a .kml file and RINEX (yet experimental) files in the install directory. In addition to the console output, GNSS-SDR also writes log files at /tmp/ (configurable with the commandline flag ```./gnss-sdr --log_dir=/path/to/log```).
