Radioconda environment

Initial set up

Radioconda installation files can be found in radioconda github release page.

For Windows, install radioconda terminal using radioconda-<release-date>-Windows-x86_64.exe installer. For Linux, download radioconda-<release-date>-Linux-x86_64.sh, open terminal and install the radioconda environment:

cd Downloads
bash radioconda-<release-date>-Linux-x86_64.sh

To access radioconda environment on Windows, search for radioconda terminal and open it with administrator privileges. On Linux radioconda base environment loads automatically once the terminal is opened.

Tip

Linux only. If you want to exit radioconda base environment in terminal, enter conda deactivate command.

Create new radioconda environment with a custom name and activate it using the following commands:

conda create -n <custom environment name>
conda activate <custom environment name>

Install the following packages that contain necessary build tools for the current environment.

conda install conda-build conda-forge-pinning

Custom radioconda environment set up is complete.

Tip

Make sure that your LimeSDR device is compatible with the new generation library and install appropriate SDR device drivers. See Device support list and LimeSDR drivers for Windows.

Local channel set up

Note

This step is only recommend for project developers and package maintainers.

Setting up local conda channel is usefull for testing locally built conda packages. Conda tool uses channels to pull requested packages when using conda install tool. If the local channel is not added to the list, conda will most likely fail to install the built package. To set up a local channel, where all the conda-build tool localy built packages are stored, the following command must be executed:

conda config --append channels <radioconda install root>\envs\<your custom env name>\conda-bld\

To double check if the channel was added use the following command:

conda config --show channels

Conda should print a similar channel list as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Conda channel list

If you are not sure where the root installation of your radioconda is, you can execute the following command to find out your root install path:

conda config --show root_prefix

To get the full path to local channel add \envs\<your custom env name>\conda-bld\ to the received root_prefix value. Once the channel is added to the list, you can install locally built conda packages using the following command:

conda install built_package_name

When installing package, you can also specify package version built_pacakge_name=1.0.0 or version and build string built_package_name=1.0.0=hb7fb3a4_0 to install a specific package if more than one variant of the package exists in the local channel. When performing package install, built package build string specification can also help prevent installing already existing packages from the public conda-forge channel. By default conda install tool searches for packages through different channels that are listed in the channels list starting from the top (refer to Figure 1). If a test package install without version or build string is requested, it is possible that conda will install a package from public channel (if it exists in the public channel) instead of local. By specifying the exact version and build string it is possible to bypass the install from the public channel. A more permanent solution for avoiding incorrect test package installs, is to move the local channel to the top of the channel list. If you already added the channel, then remove it with the following command:

conda config --remove channels <radioconda install root>\envs\<your custom env name>\conda-bld\

And add it to the top of the list:

conda config --add channels <radioconda install root>\envs\<your custom env name>\conda-bld\

Now modify channel_priority to flexible:

conda config --set channel_priority flexible

This will allow conda to resolve any other dependencies that are not present in your local channel when building packages from recipes.

Warning

Once the development and testing phase of the conda packages is over, it is highly recommended to revert the channel_priority back to strict and move the local channel to the bottom of the list (use commands conda config --remove channels ... and conda config --append channels ...) or completely remove it from the list (use only conda config --remove channels ...) to avoid package installation problems in the future.