Running CHIRP on Linux¶

This page describes how to get the newer python3-based CHIRP-next running on Linux.

Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Raspbian, etc¶

Install prerequisite packages:

$ sudo apt install git python3-wxgtk4.0 python3-serial python3-six python3-future python3-requests python3-pip

You should be able to install either the wheel or the tarball using pip:

$ pip3 install chirp-next-20230114.tar.gz

NOTE: Your system may install pip as pip3 like above, or just pip

If you run the above command as a regular user, the chirp executable will be installed into ~/.local/bin/chirp. If you run it as root, then it will be in /usr/local/bin/chirp as you might normally expect.

Create a desktop (menu) entry¶

A desktop entry can be placed in /usr/share/applications/chirp.desktop to have a menu entry added. Or it can be placed on the desktop itself to add an icon.

See the template desktop entry distributed with chirp: https://github.com/kk7ds/chirp/blob/master/chirp/share/chirp.desktop

If you have installed chirp for your user only, then update the paths for your home directory: ~/.local/share/applications/chirp.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Name=CHiRP-next (user install)
Comment=Program radios using CHiRP
Keywords=ham radio
Exec=.local/bin/chirp
Icon=.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/chirp/share/chirp.ico
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true
Type=Application
Categories=HamRadio

(Optional) Newer wxPython¶

You may want to install a newer wxPython, depending on what your distro ships. For Debian-derived distros (including Ubuntu and Mint) you can do that with a command like:

pip3 install -U -f https://extras.wxpython.org/wxPython4/extras/linux/gtk3/ubuntu-20.04 wxPython

Check the directory listing for other distro versions and use the closest match to what you're on. NOTE that this will not work for non-x86_64 machines (like the Raspberry Pi) as there are no binary builds for those platforms.

Python 3.11 issues¶

Right now (as of 9-March-2023), testing and released builds are based on <=3.10. If you want to run chirp on a distro with 3.11 you'll likely have to do some work on your own.

For issues with attrdict see this github issue.

Serial port permissions¶

Note that you may need to add your users who want to use CHIRP to the group that owns the serial ports. This issue is often indicated by an "access denied" error when accessing serial port. Determine the group ownership of your serial port like this (assuming ttyUSB0):

$ stat -c %G /dev/ttyUSB0
dialout

Now you need to add your user to that group. On most Linux distros this is accomplished with:

sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER

Be sure to use whatever group the above stat command reported.

You will then need to log out and back in for it to take effect.

Installation on Fedora 37 running Python 3.11¶

This was performed and tested on a clean installation of Fedora 37 that was fully updated before installing chirp.
The same procedure should work on all current versions of fedora running python3.

First install certain system level packages

sudo dnf install python3-pip python3-devel gtk3-devel

Now use pip to install the following packages as your regular user.

pip install wheel attrdict3
pip install wxpython

The installation of wxpython may take some time to complete so be patient while it is running. Once the steps above have completed download and use pip to install the packages from the download site.

Download the .tar.gz file then install it with pip. For example:

pip install chirp-20230219.tar.gz

When this is complete you can test the operation.

First make certain that your user is a member of the dialout group with the command groups.
If necessary add your user to the dialout group with

sudo usermod -aG dialout $USER

as noted above. To have that take effect you must log out then back in.
Again verify with the groups command.

Now you can test it from the command line with

chirp

The executable is installed in ~/.local/bin

when this works you can add the desktop file with

$ cp .local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chirp/share/chirp.desktop .local/share/applications/

which gives you the icon on the activities menu to launch chirp.
You might choose to edit the desktop file in .local/share/applications and change the path to the icon to read

/home/<username>/.local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chirp/share/chirp.ico

so it properly shows the chirp icon image.

If the command chirp does not work please check your path to verify it is complete as mine is. The command echo $PATH should show /home/<username>/.local/bin: at the beginning. If not that can be fixed by editing the ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile to add that to the existing $PATH. If the path is configured properly then the desktop file should be able to launch chirp for your user.

Note that the device used as the comm port may be either /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyACM0 so the user might need to verify which port is available. Chirp does not seem to automatically detect the /dev/ttyACM0 device so the user may need to use the 'custom' device and enter it manually.

Following the steps above installs the app as a user level app and it will only be accessible to that user.

Once installed upgrades to newer versions are done simply:

1. download the newer .tar.gz file.
2. pip install --upgrade chirp-<version>.tar.gz