SDRplay on Linux

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I'm old school. I'm talking TUBES! Or at least, discrete solid state components. To say that I am not a fan of Chinese made crap would be an understatement. Be that as it may, given the many benefits and flexibility, I decided to dip my toes onto the SDR waters and bought a SDRplay. Seemed to be the best bang for the buck. BUT, getting it to work on a Linux computer, well, that was a WHOLE LOT OF PAIN that I hope to help others avoid.

After a long struggle trying to get a SDRplay to play nice on Ubuntu/Xubuntu with SDR++, I finally found the answer on a SDRangel forum. The OS tries to load MSI drivers which conflict with the SDRplay API. They must be added to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf (or create a new .conf in that same directory. I called mine /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-msi.conf) and add to it these three lines:

blacklist sdr_msi3101
blacklist msi001
blacklist msi2500

Without doing this, even though it appears in the device list, SDRplay device will not start. With it, life is good.

So, here's my complete setup list to install SDR++ and get a SDRplay device to play nice on Linux.

1) Ensure your SDRPlay module disconnected.
2) Install the SDRPlay API (SDRplay_RSP_API-Linux-3.15.2.run)
3) Connect SDRPlay.
4) lsusb to ensure the device is seen.
5) Copy blacklist-msi.conf to /etc/modprobe.d (The missing puzzle piece)
6) Download the latest release from [the Releases page](https://github.com/AlexandreRouma/SDRPlusPlus/releases) and extract to the directory of your choice. Mine is sdrpp_ubuntu_jammy_amd64.deb. You may have Noble of some other. Just be aware.

Then, from that directory, in terminal run:

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sudo apt install libfftw3-dev libglfw3-dev libvolk2-dev libzstd-dev libsoapysdr-dev libairspyhf-dev libiio-dev libad9361-dev librtaudio-dev libhackrf-dev
If `libvolk2-dev` is not available, use `libvolk1-dev`.

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sudo dpkg -i sdrpp_ubuntu_[your ubuntu flavor]_amd64.deb

Start SDR++, select SDRPlay from device list, configure and enjoy.


73'
Z