[Discuss-gnuradio] Problem establishing connection with USRP

[William L. Bahn]

I'm trying to talk to a USRP using the vanilla install of the binaries 
for Ubuntu.

I am simply trying to run usrp_fft.py to verify that the basic system is 
working.

I have a machine with FC7 on it that talks to the USRP just fine. When I 
try to run the FFT program on the Ubunto machine I get a long output 
stream the gist of which seems to be that it is having problems with the 
USB.

The first few lines of the output are:

usrp_open_interface:usb_claim_interface: failed interface 0
could not claim interface 0: Operation not permitted
open_nth_cmd_interface: open_cmd_interface fo;ed
usrp: failed to load firmware /usr/share/usrp/rev4/std.ihx

It then proceeds with a long Traceback, which I can provide if someone 
would like.

The "Operation not permitted" makes me wonder if it's a permissions 
issue. I ran the program using sudo and it still failed, but with a 
different error message. This time the only thing it said prior to the 
Traceback is:

Can't find fpga bitstream: std_2rxhb_2tx.rbf

I don;t know what the sequence of events is, but this makes me think 
that running as sudo solved the USB problem. Anyone have any other ideas?

Any suggestions as to how I can get it to find the bitstream file?

FYI: This is on a Dell netbook (Inspiron 910) and apparently  you can't 
actually log in as root.

Thanks