RTL-SDR blog v4 driver compiles on PowerPC OS X 10.5

Yesterday I was wondering whether I could use my RTL-SDR blog v4 on my iMac G5 running OS X Leopard, and it seems the answer is maybe. The Osmocom-modified driver can be compiled easily, not sure if the same can be said about any of the applications that use it (GNUradio, Gqrx, SDR++, SDRAngel).

Make sure you have all installed prerequisites (MacPorts should already be installed, I compiled it using gcc14 but it might work with gcc 4.0 or 4.2):

$ sudo port install libusb gcc14 git

To compile the driver, clone the official repo and compile it:

$ git clone https://github.com/rtlsdrblog/rtl-sdr-blog.git
$ cd rtl-sdr-blog
$ mkdir build && cd build
$ LDFLAGS="-L/opt/local/lib" CC="gcc-mp-14" cmake ../
$ make LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/local/lib
$ sudo make install

And the library and associated programs will be installed into /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/lib. If you plug the RTL-SDR v4 into a USB port, you can test it using rtl_test.

$ rtl_test
Found 1 device(s):
  0:  RTLSDRBlog, Blog V4, SN: 00000001

Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U OEM
Found Rafael Micro R828D tuner
RTL-SDR Blog V4 Detected
Supported gain values (29): 0.0 0.9 1.4 2.7 3.7 7.7 8.7 12.5 14.4 15.7 16.6 19.7 20.7 22.9 25.4 28.0 29.7 32.8 33.8 36.4 37.2 38.6 40.2 42.1 43.4 43.9 44.5 48.0 49.6
Sampling at 2048000 S/s.

Info: This tool will continuously read from the device, and report if
samples get lost. If you observe no further output, everything is fine.

Reading samples in async mode...

Now, compiling Gqrx to run on PowerPC OS X 10.5 might be a huge beast to tackle, since latest versions are using QT6/5, which is a no-no for OS X, but older versions use QT4, so there might be a chance. But that’s for another day.

Notes