Introduction

Installation

Install Rust

To install Rust, we recommend following the instructions on their website.

FutureSDR works with stable and nightly Rust versions. However, nightly allows for a few more performance optimizations and might, therefore, be preferred.

In addition, working on the web GUI (i.e., extending and recompiling the frontend) requires nightly. This is due to Leptos, our GUI framework of choice. It offers a nicer syntax with nightly, which we use in our frontend code.

You can switch to nightly globally

rustup toolchain install nightly
rustup default nightly

or only for your FutureSDR project

rustup toolchain install nightly
cd <into your project or FutureSDR>
rustup override set nightly

Web GUI and Web SDR Applications

To compile the web frontend and web SDR applications, the wasm32-unknown-unknown target is required. You can install it with

rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown

All web frontends and examples are compiled with Trunk, a build and packaging tool for Rust WebAssembly projects. You can install it with

cargo install --locked trunk

or one of the other options documented on their website.

Linux (Ubuntu 23.10)

  • Clone the FutureSDR repository
    git clone https://github.com/FutureSDR/FutureSDR.git
  • Optionally, install SoapySDR
    sudo apt install -y libsoapysdr-dev soapysdr-module-all soapysdr-tools
  • Check, if your setup is working by running cargo build in the FutureSDR directory.
  • Continue, for example, with the included applications.

macOS

These instructions assume that you use the Homebrew as package manager.

  • Clone the FutureSDR repository
    git clone https://github.com/FutureSDR/FutureSDR.git
  • Optionally, install SoapySDR
    brew install soapysdr
  • Additional drivers are available in the Pothos Homebrew tap.
  • Check, if your setup is working by running cargo build in the FutureSDR directory.
  • Continue, for example, with the included applications.

Windows

  • Install Visual Studio C++ Community Edition (required components: Win10 SDK and VC++).

    Visual Studio does not add its binaries and libraries to the PATH. Instead, it offers various terminal environments, configured for a given toolchain. Please use the native toolchain for your system to build FutureSDR, e.g., x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022.

For SoapySDR hardware drivers:

  • PothosSDR for pre-built SDR drivers. The installer offers to add the libraries to your PATH. Make sure to check this option.
  • Install bindgen dependencies.
  • Run volk_profile on the command line.

PothosSDR comes with many SoapySDR modules. Some of them require further software and services, which can cause issues when scanning for available devices. If you run into this issue, either (1) use a filter to specify the driver manually or (2) move the problematic library to a backup folder outside the search path. The libraries are, by default, at C:\Program Files\PothosSDR\lib\SoapySDR\modules0.8. If, for example, SDRplay or UHD causes issues, move sdrPlaySupport.dll or uhdSupport.dll to a backup folder.

  • Check, if your setup is working by running cargo build in the FutureSDR directory.
  • Continue, for example, with the included applications.
Concepts