Spent the most part of today trying to install GNU Radio and gr-satellites, using a clean install of Kubuntu 19.04 (=Ubuntu with KDE instead of Gnome), which is the latest release.
I kind of succeeded. GNU Radio Companion is running and gr-satellites is installed. Most flow graphs don't have missing blocks and compile correctly. The only part that is missing is that when I execute a gr-satellite flow graph there is no Xterm popping up. I added the following lines to .gnuradio/grc.conf, but that didn't make any difference....
[grc] xterm_executable = /usr/bin/xterm
Here are the install instructions. I hope they are useful as a reference to someone.
================================================
Steps to install GNURadio and gr-satellites on (K)Ubuntu 19.04
$sudo apt-get install gnuradio --> will install version 3.7.13.4-4build1 plus dependencies
$sudo apt-get install gr-osmosdr --> will install the block to access a RTL-SDR stick for testing
$sudo apt-get install xterm --> used by GNURadio
After installing the things above you should be able to start GNU Radio Companion from menu or command line.
Open a sample flow graph, e.g. an FM receiver flow graph you can find online, then compile and execute. If it works: success
$sudo apt-get install git --> will install git for cloning git repositories
$mkdir src $cd src
$git clone https://github.com/daniestevez/gr-satellites.git --> the good stuff
$git clone https://github.com/daniestevez/libfec.git --> needed for gr-satellites
$cd libfec $./configure $make $sudo make install $cd ..
$sudo apt-get install python-pip --> needed to install gr-satellites dependencies
$pip2 install construct --> installs this gr-satellites dependency $pip2 install requests --> make sure it has the trailing 's'
$sudo apt-get install swig --> installs this gr-satellites dependency $apt-get install cmake --> if not installed already
$cd gr-satellites $mkdir build $cd build $cmake .. $make $sudo make install $sudo ldconfig $cd .. $./compile_hierarchical.sh --> blocks needed for certain gr-satellites flow graphs. Don't forget this step and be patient because it will take a while to complete.
Now you can start GNU Radio Companion and open a flow graph from the app folder in the source directory of gr-satellites. Compile and execute.
If it works start GQRX, activate the UDP audio stream and start decoding telemetry.