1. Installation

1.1. Preparing the hardware

For PyRPL to work, you need a working Red Pitaya / STEMlab connected to the same local area network (LAN) as the computer running PyRPL. If you have not already set up your Red Pitaya, follow the current official Red Pitaya quick-start documentation and make sure you can reach the board from your computer.

Hardware installation for PyRPL gives more detailed instructions in case you are experiencing any trouble.

1.2. Installing PyRPL

The easiest and fastest way to get PyRPL running is to download and execute the latest precompiled executable from the PyRPL releases page.

For a Python installation, we recommend uv with Python 3.12 and PyQt5:

uv python install 3.12
uv venv --python 3.12
uv pip install "pyrpl[qt-pyqt5]"

See Installing the Python package with uv (recommended) for the complete uv workflow, pip and conda alternatives, and development-source installation.

1.3. Compiling the FPGA code (optional)

A ready-to-use FPGA bitfile comes with PyRPL. If you want to build your own, possibly customized bitfile, go to Building the FPGA firmware.