# Moving from an apt-get (Ubunto) install to Pybombs

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/moving-from-an-apt-get-ubunto-install-to-pybombs/241492>\
**Category:** GNU Radio\
**Created:** [April 9, 2015, 9:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/moving-from-an-apt-get-ubunto-install-to-pybombs/241492 "2015-04-09T21:37:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Detlef\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/58f4c7/32.png) [@Detlef\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Detlef_R)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 9:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/moving-from-an-apt-get-ubunto-install-to-pybombs/241492/1 "2015-04-09T21:37:39Z")

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Greetings, Long time lurker–daily user, but now faced with a  
decision. I have noticed the fine work with Pybombs and picked up a more  
hardware and thought to myself:“Hey, now is time to bite the bullet is  
start using Pybombs” I don’t want that bullet to shoot me in the foot  
(sorry). Question: What is the safest method to switch to Pybombs for a  
working installation?My thoughts were to 1. Remove what I can manually  
and start over2. Tell Pybombs to install into the ubunto  
/user/local/blah dirs. Gregnz8r

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**Author:** ![Gregory\_WSRatcliff](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@Gregory\_WSRatcliff](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gregory_WSRatcliff)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/moving-from-an-apt-get-ubunto-install-to-pybombs/241492/2 "2015-04-10T00:27:43Z")

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On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 3:42 PM, Marcus Müller [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> but you don’t have to – the prefix method will work, nevertheless.  
> Pybombs will only need root privileges to install missing libraries from  
> the Ubuntu archives.  
> Warning: If you plan to use Ettus USRPs, please make sure you _don’t_ have  
> Ubuntu’s uhd\*, libuhd\* or uhd-host packages installed; these range from old  
> to archaeologically interesting.
> 
> Best regards,  
> Marcus

I’d be a bit stronger than Marcus here and recommend that you definitely  
remove any previous installations of GNU Radio. If you’ve gotten it  
through  
apt-get, then use apt-get to uninstall (and might as well purge) to make  
sure you get it all and so apt-get isn’t confused about anything that  
you’ve removed by hand.

While Marcus is right that the environmental setup from PyBOMBS will  
provide a nice separation of everything, we still see a lot of problems  
with double installs of GNU Radio, especially when they are installed  
into  
/usr.

Tom

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**Author:** ![Gregory\_WSRatcliff](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@Gregory\_WSRatcliff](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gregory_WSRatcliff)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 9:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/moving-from-an-apt-get-ubunto-install-to-pybombs/241492/3 "2015-04-09T21:43:58Z")

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Hi Greg,

pybombs is pretty safe. It will only install stuff that successfully  
builds, so the chance that you wreck your installation are small, even  
if you decide to install stuff into /usr/local. However, you can also  
instruct pybombs to only install into /home/greg/prefix (or any other  
directory of your choice), which will leave your whole system untouched.  
You delete /home/greg/prefix, and everything pybombs did will be undone  
🙂

You should indeed uninstall GNU Radio if you have already installed it,  
but you don’t have to – the prefix method will work, nevertheless.  
Pybombs will only need root privileges to install missing libraries from  
the Ubuntu archives.  
Warning: If you plan to use Ettus USRPs, please make sure you _don’t_  
have Ubuntu’s uhd\*, libuhd\* or uhd-host packages installed; these range  
from old to archaeologically interesting.

Best regards,  
Marcus