Installing ROS2.md

Installing ROS2

Step 0: Install ROS-Humble

We use ROS Humble, since it is the current LTS version. This requires Ubuntu 22.04 at least.

Start with the official install guide here

ros-humble-desktop-full should be good for most.

Like with ROS1, setup a workspace. Usually colcon_ws. Notice that ROS2 moved from catkin to colcon for its build process, and there are some minor differences from a user standpoint.

Optional Step 0.5: Tame colcon

Colcon, unlike catkin, cares about your current directory when building, by default. This is a dumb default. Put in ~/.colcon/defaults.yaml the following, with paths changed to fit your setup:

"": # applies to all colcon subcommands
    log-base: /code/ros2_ws/log

build:
    symlink-install: true
    build-base: /code/ros2_ws/build
    install-base: /code/ros2_ws/install
    base-paths:
        - /code/ros2_ws/src

test:
    build-base: /code/ros2_ws/build
    install-base: /code/ros2_ws/install
    event-handlers:
        - console_direct+
    base-paths:
        - /code/ros2_ws/src

Now you can run colcon build and colcon test from anywhere in your system and it will create its files in the same place, all the time. You might need to change this if you ever need multiple workspaces and don't want to delete the created folders. If you want to go crazy with this, check out this example.

You can also find this file here

Installing requirements

Do the following steps in order on a clean ubuntu 22.04 system. Missing a step will likely produce errors.

cd commands are given as inexact, do what they intend to do :)

This repo and some of its submodules

mkdir -p colcon_ws/src
cd colcon_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/smarc-project/smarc2.git
cd smarc2
./scripts/get-submodules.sh external_packages

Colcon, rosdep, pip

apt update && apt upgrade # Optional but good
apt install python3-colcon-ros python3-rosdep python3-pip apt-utils ros-dev-tools
pip install --user setuptools==58.2.0 # Optional. Stops useless warnings when building
rosdep init
rosdep update

Dependencies of this repo

cd colcon_ws
./src/smarc2/scripts/rosdep_install_from_src.sh

Build

cd colcon_ws
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash # if you havent put this in your .bashrc
colcon build

Add your workspace to bashrc (or equivalent)

cd colcon_ws
echo "source /home/YOUR_USERNAME/colcon_ws/install/setup.sh" >> ~/.bashrc

and/or

cd colcon_ws
source install/setup.sh

In any terminal you want to use ros in.

Continue with porting

Continue with a new package