Macbook Pro and USRP2

GNU Radio
1

Hi Everyone, I’m looking into doing some development on a Macbook Pro
with a USRP2. I’ve tried to find out what ethernet chipset the Macbook
Pro uses but have only been deduce that it uses a Marvell based
chipset. Can anyone confirm how their Macbook Pro works with the
USRP2? Otherwise I’ll have look into using a different development
machine. Thanks!
-Leslie

2

Hi Leslie - I don’t know what chipset my MBP uses; I can find out if
you really want (I’m sure Googling for it would work eventually).
That said: If I understand the current state of the USRP2 software, at
this time it doesn’t matter because the USRP2 software component of
GNU Radio currently requires Linux. Although I’m sure folks are
working towards broadening OS support, who knows when that might
happen. I’m not actively doing GNU Radio development at this time (in
the ‘ebb’ part of the flow), so maybe someone who’s more in turn with
USRP2 programming could correct me if I’m wrong. - MLD

3

Thanks for your input Mike. I’m planning on installing a Linux distro
(likely Ubuntu) on the MBP. I did do a number of Google searches
trying to identify the chipset, but was unable to get the exact
chipset.
-Leslie

4

Leslie C. wrote:

Thanks for your input Mike. I’m planning on installing a Linux distro
(likely Ubuntu) on the MBP. I did do a number of Google searches
trying to identify the chipset, but was unable to get the exact
chipset.
-Leslie

I have a circa Jan 2007 MacBook Pro (HW Rev 3,1 - the Santa Rosa
chipset), which has a Marvell Yukon 88E8058 PCI-E Gig-E NIC. I can
confirm that with GNURadio (svn rev 10260) on an Ubuntu 8.10, talking to
a USRP2 is no problem (find_usrps and usrp2_fft.py run without a hitch).
Doug

–
Doug G.
Research Assistant
Communications and Signal Processing Lab
Oklahoma State University
http://cspl.okstate.edu
[email protected]
[email protected]

5

Hi,

  1. Download and run Ubuntu live CD first (do not install).

  2. From terminal, run :

dmesg | grep Ethernet

and/or run:

lspci | grep Ethernet

and you will know what is your chip set.

Best Regards,

Firas

6

Why do you need to know the chipset?

I think gnuradio should work with any chipset

Marco Casaroli
Inatel

7

I’m using an MBP “Early 2008”, relevant result of “lspci” is:

Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Unknown device 436a
(rev 13)

ps> For OSX users who want to have ‘lspci’ available to them, see <
http://www.x86dev.org/forum/index.php?topic=307.0

. The patches are for pciutils (from kernel.org) 2.2.9 – not the
most recent, but not too old yet – and the author has made everything
GPL’d (or, so claimed), with full sources available if someone wanted
to update the patches for a newer version of pciutils.

8

There are some issues with some GigE chipsets and the USRP2. See

http://gnuradio.org/trac/wiki/USRP2GigEReports

for more details. It seems that the Marvell chip is not in that list
yet. However, its cousin is.

Cheers,

Thomas

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 1:01 PM, Marco Aurelio
[email protected] wrote:

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 11:17 PM, Leslie C. [email protected] wrote:

doesn’t matter because the USRP2 software component of GNU Radio currently
[email protected]
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio

Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio

–
“Don’t complain; Just work harder” - Randy Pausch

Thomas S., Ph.D. Candidate
Networked & Embedded Systems Laboratory (NESL)
University of California, Los A. (UCLA)

9

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 7:45 PM, Michael D. [email protected]
wrote:

version of pciutils.
Thanks. This was useful.

MBP 15" Unibody:

00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0ab0 (rev
b1)

I don’t have a USRP2 so I don’t know if it works with it or not.

Brian