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.