This is a short guide to getting the bladeRF SDR to work with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

Install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

  • wsl --install

  • Enable the following features through the “Turn Windows Features On of Off” dialog from Control Panel

    • Hyper-V
    • Virtual Machine Platform
    • Windows Subsystem for Linux

Install and configure Linux Distribution

I just installed an Ubuntu distribution directly from the Microsoft Store by searching it up. There are other ways to install WSL outlined here.

Once we are inside the Ubuntu environment, we need to install gnuradio:

  • sudo apt-get update

  • sudo apt-get install gnuradio python3-packaging

Attaching bladeRF to WSL in Windows Powershell

  1. Install usbipd on Windows:

    • winget install usbipd

    • or use the installer here

  2. List all connected usb devices and note the bus id of bladeRF:

    • usbipd list

  3. Share the bladeRF device:

    • usbipd bind --busid <bus id>

    • note the sharing should be persistent

  4. Attach bladeRF to our Linux distribution:

    • usbipd attach --wsl --busid <bus id>

Accessing bladeRF in Linux

  1. Check that bladeRF is attached:

    • lsusb

    • sudo bladeRF-cli -p

  2. Download the latest FPGA bitstream:

    • wget https://www.nuand.com/fpga/hostedxA4-latest.rbf

    • note we need to select the correct bitstream based on the version of bladeRF we are using

  3. Flash the FPGA bitstream:

    • sudo bladeRF-cli -l hostedxA4-latest.rbf

  4. Enter interactive mode of bladeRF-cli:

    • sudo bladeRF-cli --interactive

    • some stuff to do can be found here