The DragonOS distribution is a fork of Lubuntu, but it’s specialized for SDR. It comes preloaded with a ton of useful tools like GNURadio. It’s super cool because it saves you time, many radio tools are outdated and can be a pain to set up.

To grab the ISO, just head over here. Next, you’ll need a hypervisor like VirtualBox or VMWare, whichever you prefer. Since I’m on Windows, I’m keeping it simple with VirtualBox, which you can download here. For Mac ARM, you’d need to use VMWare :)
Launch VirtualBox and click the New button to import your ISO.

Click Next to allocate your hardware resources. For RAM, 4GB should suffice; if in doubt (since some apps can be hungry), I recommend 8GB (8192Mb). For the CPU, it depends on your setup, I set it to 6, though 2 or 4 should work fine.

Then, click Next to set up disk space. Allocate at least 30GB since later steps require a minimum of 30GB.

Finally, click Next and then Finish.

Now, double-click to launch DragonOS. You might see a screen like this:

Press Enter and after a few moments, you’ll land on a desktop that looks like this:

The installation isn’t complete yet, you’ll notice an Install DragonOS FocalX icon on the desktop. You need to run it because if you shut down the VM now, everything you did will be lost.
Double-click the icon and follow the installation prompts. The default options work fine. After a bit, you’ll be prompted to reboot the VM, and then you’re all set!

On DragonOS, you’ll find a slew of preinstalled software, so we won’t cover them all. I’ll let you explore based on your own needs, but know there’s something for every radio enthusiast. Let’s test things out by plugging in your SDR receiver. In my setup, I use the RTL-SDR V4 dongle along with the awesome SDR++ software. Before proceeding, you need to instruct VirtualBox to recognize your SDR dongle connected via your host’s USB port. In the menu, go to Devices -> USB and click on your SDR receiver.

Now, you’re ready to listen. In SDR++, under Source, select RTL-SDR and choose your receiver from the dropdown below. Then click the Play button and everything should work like a charm!

When you want to work with files from your host machine on your VM, you’ll need a way to transfer them. A simple solution is setting up a shared folder. First, ensure that the Guest Additions are installed. These drivers enhance the interaction between the VM and the host. Within the VM, click on Devices -> Insert Guest Additions CD Image... at the top, and then Execute the autorun.sh script.

Next, shut down the VM, click on Settings (the yellow gear icon), then go to Shared Folders. Right-click and choose Add Shared Folder. Finally, select the folder from your host machine you’d like to share and check Auto-Mount.

Now, inside the VM file explorer, you should see your shared folder under the name sf_Downloads. If you encounter any permissions issues, open a terminal and type sudo adduser [your-user] vboxsf, then reboot the VM, and it should work perfectly.

And that’s it, DragonOS is ready to be used!