Use LimeSdr_mini on Vbox + LimeSuite

General Discussion
1

Hi.

I’m using LimeSdr-mini.

My purpose is to use LimeSuite’s C API to receive and store the data of a specific frequency channel in real time.

Development environment uses OS Ubuntu18.04-64bit in Vbox environment.

After following the LimeSuite installation tutorial, when I checked the device connection using “LimeUtil --find” to check the Sdr connection after installation, I saw that the device was checked normally at first, and later, the device was not properly checked.

What is the problem? …

The installation script and test contents are as follows.

================================================

  1. dependency
    sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:myriadrf/drivers
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install git g++ cmake libsqlite3-dev
    sudo apt-get install libsoapysdr-dev libi2c-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev -y
    sudo apt-get install libwxgtk3.0-dev freeglut3-dev -y

  2. Source Build
    git clone https://github.com/myriadrf/LimeSuite.git
    cd LimeSuite
    git checkout stable
    mkdir builddir && cd builddir
    cmake …/
    make -j4
    sudo make install
    sudo ldconfig

cd LimeSuite/udev-rules
sudo ./install.sh

  1. test result
    sdr@sdr-VirtualBox:~/sdr/LimeSuite$ sudo LimeUtil --find
  • [LimeSDR Mini, media=USB 3.0, module=FT601, addr=24607:1027, serial=1D53AC048EEEAE]

sdr@sdr-VirtualBox:~/sdr/LimeSuite$ sudo LimeUtil --find
Error getting usb descriptor
failed to get serial number

  • [, media=USB 3.0, module=FT601, addr=24607:1027]

sdr@sdr-VirtualBox:~/sdr/LimeSuite$ dmesg
[ 1812.089666] usb 2-1: new SuperSpeed Gen 1 USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd
[ 1812.116416] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=601f, bcdDevice= 0.00
[ 1812.116418] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 1812.116419] usb 2-1: Product: LimeSDR Mini
[ 1812.116420] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: Lime Micro
[ 1812.116420] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: 1D53AC048EEEAE

2

When you installed virtualbox did you also install the “optional” “VirtualBox Extension Pack”, it is a bunch of binary blobs provided by oracle, that provides “Support for USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP, disk encryption, NVMe and PXE boot for Intel cards.”

Most of the time trying to do anything in a virtual machine when it comes to high throughput hardware you will find strange problems. And the best place to find support for problems with virtualisation is on the virtualisation product site. The exact problem and solution may not be obvious in most cases.

1 Like
3

+1. We can’t really provide support on use of LimeSDR inside virtual machines, because it would frequently be difficult to tell whether the problem is the SDR or VM related.