Running SDR# On Ubuntu 20.04 Linux via WINE

SDR# is a very popular Windows SDR program often used with the RTL-SDR and Airspy SDR. One drawback is that it lacks native Linux compatibility. In the past it has been possible to run SDR# via WINE, however some newer updates were thought to have broken that ability. WINE is a Windows emulator that allows some Windows programs to run under Linux.

However, recently on Twitter we've seen a Tweet by @albinstigo indicating that SDR# can indeed run on Ubuntu 20.04 via WINE 5.0. In a Tweet he explains the steps which are quite simple:

  1. Install WINE via apt.
  2. Install dotNET 4.8 via winetricks.
  3. Install the Verdana font via winetricks.
  4. Enjoy SDR

One limitation is that the emulated SDR# cannot connect to the SDR natively via the USB. So you will need to use TCP server software such as rtl_tcp or SpyServer to get it to work. Basically, run the server on the native Linux environment, then connect to it in SDR# running on the emulated Windows environment.

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Marc Remijn
#232708

Unfortunately I can’t get it to work on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS / Wine 6.0.3

Had to install dotnet48 with winetricks –force

But whether with dotnet48 or with mono or without any dotnet framework I get:

SDRSharp.exe\nCoreCLR Version: 6.0.722.32202\n.NET Version: 6.0.7\nDescription: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.\nException Info: System.ArgumentException: Font ‘?’ cannot be found.\r\n at System.Drawing.FontFamily.GetGdipGenericSansSerif()\r\n at”…
wine: Unhandled exception 0xe0434352 in thread 24 at address 7B010BE6 (thread 0024), starting debugger…
Unhandled exception: 0xe0434352 in 32-bit code (0x7b010be6).

I can’t get rid of this error. No matter if I install verdana font and/or corefonts.

Strange that it wants to load font “?”. The “?” font will probably never be found in any font package…

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Evgeny
#198797

I strongly recommend installing gdiplus via winetricks to improve performance and to avoid font rendering bugs.

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Graham Whaley
#196232

I have a github gist with some details on this as well – also explains a bit why you have to use spyserver and cannot go direct to the dongle iirc. You can find it at https://gist.github.com/grahamwhaley/094d62d88575141377f02fa92342fb7e

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Bob
#196226

WINE is Not an Emulator 😉

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Erling
#196375

i was gonna say the same

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Eric Brombaugh
#196047

I can confirm – this process worked on Fedora 32. Note that Fedora 32 packages Wine 5.18 and winetricks complains that dotnet48 is broken under 5.18. I used the –force option and it appears to have worked – at least SDR# starts up. I was able to connect to several spyservers over the internet.

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mggyi
#226765

Download and install donet5.0.2. I’m using SDRSharp.exe 1.0.1811 with wine.

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