ROS 2 Installation

This section serves as an installation guide for setting up the ROS 2 Humble on Linux operating system. ROS 2 is a widely used framework for devgit@github.com:atom-robotics-lab/wiki.giteloping robotics software.

This guide provides step-by-step instructions for installing ROS 2, allowing developers and enthusiasts to get started with building robotic applications.

• This Document assumes that the reader has installed Ubuntu 22.04. However, if you haven’t installed Ubuntu 22.04 yet make sure to install it before proceeding.

• There are tons of resources available on the Internet to get this done.

• You can download Ubuntu 22.04 ISO (Desktop Image) file from here.

ROS 2 Humble Installation

Set locale

Make sure you have a locale which supports UTF-8. If you are in a minimal environment (such as a docker container), the locale may be something minimal like POSIX. We test with the following settings. However, it should be fine if you’re using a different UTF-8 supported locale.

locale  # check for UTF-8

sudo apt update && sudo apt install locales
sudo locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8
sudo update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

locale  # verify settings

Setup Sources

You will need to add the ROS 2 apt repository to your system.

First ensure that the Ubuntu Universe repository is enabled.

sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository universe

The ros-apt-source packages provide keys and apt source configuration for the various ROS repositories.

Installing the ros2-apt-source package will configure ROS 2 repositories for your system. Updates to repository configuration will occur automatically when new versions of this package are released to the ROS repositories.

sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl -y
export ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/ros-infrastructure/ros-apt-source/releases/latest | grep -F "tag_name" | awk -F\" '{print $4}')
curl -L -o /tmp/ros2-apt-source.deb "https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/ros-apt-source/releases/download/${ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION}/ros2-apt-source_${ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION}.$(. /etc/os-release && echo $VERSION_CODENAME)_all.deb" # If using Ubuntu derivates use $UBUNTU_CODENAME
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/ros2-apt-source.deb

Install ROS 2 packages

Update your apt repository caches after setting up the repositories.

sudo apt update

ROS 2 packages are built on frequently updated Ubuntu systems. It is always recommended that you ensure your system is up to date before installing new packages.

sudo apt upgrade

Warning

Due to early updates in Ubuntu 22.04 it is important that systemd and udev-related packages are updated before installing ROS 2. The installation of ROS 2’s dependencies on a freshly installed system without upgrading can trigger the removal of critical system packages.

Please refer to ros2/ros2#1272 and Launchpad #1974196 for more information.

Desktop Install (Recommended): ROS, RViz, demos, tutorials.

sudo apt install ros-{DISTRO}-desktop

ROS-Base Install (Bare Bones): Communication libraries, message packages, command line tools. No GUI tools.

sudo apt install ros-{DISTRO}-ros-base

Development tools: Compilers and other tools to build ROS packages

sudo apt install ros-dev-tools

Environment setup

Sourcing the setup script

Set up your environment by sourcing the following file.

# Replace ".bash" with your shell if you're not using bash
# Possible values are: setup.bash, setup.sh, setup.zsh
source /opt/ros/{DISTRO}/setup.bash

Try some examples

Talker-listener

If you installed ros-{DISTRO}-desktop above you can try some examples.

In one terminal, source the setup file and then run a C++ talker:

source /opt/ros/{DISTRO}/setup.bash
ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp talker

In another terminal source the setup file and then run a Python listener:

source /opt/ros/{DISTRO}/setup.bash
ros2 run demo_nodes_py listener

You should see the talker saying that it’s Publishing messages and the listener saying I heard those messages. This verifies both the C++ and Python APIs are working properly. Hooray!