Steve's Technology Page

This is a collection of technical information and procedures that I have written or found on the Internet.

SDR software and installation

Here are preconfigured disk images for a Raspberry Pi with an SDRplay RSP1A, HackRF One SDR, or RTL-SDR including the software in the instructions below. They will fit on a 32GB or larger Micro SD card.

Click here to download a 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS Debian Bullseye disk image. 7GB download.
Click Here for a list of software and help extracting the 32-bit image.

Click here to download a 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS Debian Bookworm disk image 2024-03-12. 8GB download.
Click Here for a list of software and help extracting the 64-bit image.

Click here to download a 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS Debian Bookworm disk image built on a Raspberry Pi 5 2024-08-12. 9GB download.
Click Here for a list of software and help extracting the 64-bit image.

Click here to download a 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS Debian Trixie disk image built on a Raspberry Pi 5 2025-10-01. 9GB download.
Click Here for a list of software and help extracting the 64-bit image.

Click here to download a 64-bit DietPi OS Debian Bookworm disk image, also with RTL-SDR support, 7/9/2024. 6.53GB download.
Click Here for a list of software and help extracting the 64-bit image.

Click here to download a 64-bit DietPi OS Debian Trixie disk image built on a Raspberry Pi 5, also with RTL-SDR support, 8/30/2025. 8GB download.
Click Here for a list of software and help extracting the 64-bit image.

Let me know how it goes! I'd like to know if you find this useful.

SDRplay has released a set of installation scripts that may be helpful. You can find them in a zip file on https://www.sdrplay.com/downloads/. Select Legacy Software Page. Select Linux/ARM (both 32 and 64). Look for Build Scripts 0.3. They do not install everything on this site.

Warning: These procedures are designed to build a system in order, so that prerequisites are satisfied. There is some leeway. However, if you skip the wrong thing, your build will fail.
If you get into trouble, let me know and I will try to help.

Raspberry Pi OS Bullseye 32-bit installation for the SDRplay RSP1A, HackRF One and RTL-SDR.

Audio problems have been resolved in this procedure.

Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit installation for the SDRplay RSP1A, HackRF One and RTL-SDR.

This is one of the faster systems presented here.

DietPi 64-bit installation with LXDE for the SDRplay RSP1A, HackRF One and RTL-SDR.

This system works well. Both built-in audio interfaces are present and working. There have been no system freezes.
This is the most stable and fastest 64-bit Bullseye operating system that I have found for the Raspberry Pi.
Choose one of the driver/OS installations below.

Debian 64-bit installation for the SDRplay RSP1A, HackRF One and RTL-SDR.

There may be audio issues with Debian and the analog/headphone jack output is not available.
This option uses many of the packages supplied with Debian and saves hours of time compiling.
Choose one of the driver/OS installations below.

Installing the SDR software

Ubuntu 32-bit installation for the SDRplay RSP1A and HackRF One.

I find that the Ubuntu operating system takes a lot of CPU time, leaving less for the SDR applications.

Linux Mint installation for the SDRplay RSP1A and HackRF One.

Microsoft Windows installation for the SDRplay RSP1A and HackRF One.

A basic setup. Back to Steve's Home Page srs@umich.edu