Manual Package installation (including digital voice)

This is a quick rundown of the packages (including optional ones) that openwebrx works with. The base system used for these instructions was a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian, and the instructions should translate well to most Debian-based distributions.

Prerequisites

OpenWebRX requires Python version 3.5 at the least. Please make sure that either your distribution has a sufficiently up-to-date version available, or install one from a different source.

Install required packages:

Distribution packages:

sudo apt-get update &&\
sudo apt-get install git build-essential cmake libfftw3-dev python3 python3-setuptools rtl-sdr netcat libitpp-dev libsndfile-dev librtlsdr-dev automake autoconf libtool pkg-config

Install csdr from source:

git clone https://github.com/jketterl/csdr.git
cd csdr
autoreconf -i
./configure
make
sudo make install
cd ..
sudo ldconfig

Install js8py library from source:

git clone https://github.com/jketterl/js8py.git
cd js8py
sudo python3 setup.py install
cd ..

Optional: Install SoapySDR

Depending on the SDR hardware you intend to use, you may need to install SoapySDR. If you are unsure: Most SDRs except for RTL-SDR sticks will require SoapySDR to be installed. You can either use packages provided by your distribution...

sudo apt-get install libsoapysdr0.6 libsoapysdr-dev soapysdr-tools
# also install sdr-specific modules:
sudo apt-get install soapysdr-module-all

If installing on Ubuntu 20, you may need to replace "libsoapysdr0.6" with "libsoapysdr0.7".

... or compile it from source:

git clone https://github.com/pothosware/SoapySDR.git
cd SoapySDR
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
cd ../..

If you compile from source, or if the module you require is not available as a package, you will need to compile the SoapySDR module for your SDR hardware. Listing compilation instructions for all of them is beyond this guide, but there is documentation available on the the SoapySDR wiki. The installation usually follows the same pattern as SoapySDR itself. You may need to install additional dependencies, they are usually also listed on the module pages.

Note: if you wish to come back and install SoapySDR at a later point, please make sure you also recompile the owrx_connector.

Install owrx_connector from source:

git clone https://github.com/jketterl/owrx_connector.git
cd owrx_connector
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
cd ../..

Install optional packages for digital voice:

Distribution packages:

sudo apt-get install sox

Install mbelib from source:

git clone https://github.com/szechyjs/mbelib.git
cd mbelib
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
cd ../..

Install digiham from source:

git clone https://github.com/jketterl/digiham.git
cd digiham
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
cd ../..

Install dsd from source:

git clone https://github.com/f4exb/dsd.git
cd dsd
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
cd ../..

You may need to install PortAudio before dsd:

sudo apt-get install portaudio19-dev

Install codec2 from source:

git clone https://github.com/drowe67/codec2.git
cd codec2
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
# manually install freedv_rx since it's not part of the default install package
sudo install -m 0755 src/freedv_rx /usr/local/bin
cd ../..

Install optional dependencies for DRM:

This snippet uses the older version 2.1.1 of dream on purpose. The lastest version 2.2 unfortunately has some issues, and reportedly does not work properly with OpenWebRX. It's recommended to stick with 2.1.1.

sudo apt-get install qt5-default libpulse0 libfaad2 libopus0 libpulse-dev libfaad-dev libopus-dev libfftw3-dev
wget https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/drm/dream/2.1.1/dream-2.1.1-svn808.tar.gz
tar xvfz dream-2.1.1-svn808.tar.gz
cd dream
qmake CONFIG+=console
make
sudo make install
cd ..

Install optional packages for Packet / APRS:

sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev

Direwolf can be installed as a package on most systems:

sudo apt-get install direwolf

Or, if you wish to install from source:

git clone https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf.git
cd direwolf
git checkout 1.5
make
sudo make install
cd ..

Install the aprs-symbols to be able to display APRS positions on the map (you can change the destination, if you update the config accordingly):

Note: The default location has changed from /opt/aprs-symbols to /usr/share/aprs-symbols with version 0.21. If you want to continue using your existing copy, please either move it to the new location, or update your configuration accordingly.

sudo git clone https://github.com/hessu/aprs-symbols /usr/share/aprs-symbols

Install optional packages for WSJT-X modes (FT8, FT4, WSPR, JT65, JT9)

Please follow the installation instructions provided on the WSJT-X homepage, using a provided package for your distribution is preferred.

Source compilation notes (for when there's no package available)

This seems to be kind of a moving target, so the following is provided rather as a known-good procedure. If you notice it has been updated, please let me know.

sudo apt-get install asciidoc automake libtool texinfo gfortran libhamlib-dev qtbase5-dev qtmultimedia5-dev qttools5-dev asciidoctor libqt5serialport5-dev qttools5-dev-tools libudev-dev xsltproc
wget http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx-2.1.2.tgz
tar xvfz wsjtx-2.1.2.tgz
cd wsjtx-2.1.2
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

Running

After cloning this repository and connecting an SDR device to your computer, you can run the server:

git clone https://github.com/jketterl/openwebrx.git
cd openwebrx
./openwebrx.py

You can now open the GUI at http://localhost:8073.

Installing OpenWebRX as a systemd service

If you want the receiver to start with your system, you can set it up as a systemd service unit. You can find a template unit file in the systemd folder. You will need to configure the User, Group, ExecStart and Path according to your environment. After installing the file into /etc/systemd/system, run sudo systemctl daemon-reload.

The following commands are available:

• sudo systemctl enable openwebrx enables automatic startup of the receiver at boot
• sudo systemctl disable openwebrx disables it again
• sudo systemctl start openwebrx starts the service manually
• sudo systemctl stop openwebrx stops the service manually
• sudo systemctl restart openwebrx restarts the service. This is very useful after changing configuration.