ROS 2 Install Instructions

Regular Ubuntu releases are only supported for 9 months, so, ROS 2 are not targeted for them. A single ROS 2 distribution will only have full support for a single Ubuntu LTS.

The Introduction to ROS course is focused on the ROS 2 version, Humble Hawksbill. The official page to install it is here.

It is highly recommended installing ROS 2 from binary packages. So, in an Ubuntu 22.04 system the installation steps are:

  • Open a terminal. You can use the tools: terminator, konsole, xterm. We recommend terminator because it provides an easy way to have several terminals in the same window. Also, xterm will be used tied to the execution of some ROS nodes. To install them do:

sudo apt install terminator
sudo apt install xterm

  • To continue with the installation, you need to add the ROS 2 apt repository to your system. Also, you will need to enable the Ubuntu Universe repository.

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

  • The next steps are to add the key of the repository and the reference to the sources.list.

sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl -y
sudo curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.key -o /usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg] http://packages.ros.org/ros2/ubuntu $(. /etc/os-release && echo $UBUNTU_CODENAME) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2.list > /dev/null
sudo apt update

  • Some needed step. 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

  • Now, install the packages for the course:

sudo apt install ros-humble-desktop
sudo apt install ros-humble-rqt-tf-tree ros-humble-tf2-tools
sudo apt install ros-humble-xacro ros-humble-joint-state-publisher-gui
sudo apt install ros-humble-camera-info-manager
sudo apt install ros-humble-camera-calibration-parsers ros-humble-camera-info-manager
sudo apt install ros-humble-ur-description
sudo apt install ros-humble-aruco-ros
sudo apt install ros-humble-controller-manager
sudo apt install ros-humble-ros2-controllers ros-humble-ros2-control
sudo apt install ros-humble-rqt-joint-trajectory-controller
sudo apt install ros-humble-rqt-controller-manager
sudo apt install ros-humble-ros-gz ros-humble-gz-ros2-control ros-humble-ros-gz-bridge
sudo apt install ros-humble-ros-gz-image ros-humble-ros-gz-interfaces ros-humble-ros-gz-sim
sudo apt install ros-humble-ros-gz-sim-demos ros-humble-ur-simulation-gz

  • In the scope of the course, some other utilities must be needed:

sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions
sudo apt install python3-colcon-clean
sudo apt install git gitk qgit build-essential wget curl
sudo apt install liburdfdom-tools bash-completion
sudo apt install python3-ament-lint python3-ament-lint-cmake

Installing an editor

In the scope on the course, you will need to create, view and edit a lot of text files. All the code (python, c++, CMakelists.txt, … and README files) are plain text files. So, any editor can be used to work with that kind of files. However, we recommend some editor with some advanced features for editing code.

There are multiples options: qtcreator, codeblocks, eclipse, lapce, vscode, codium. Check them and choose one.

Qtcreator

sudo apt install qtcreator

Codeblocks

sudo apt install codeblocks

Eclipse

There are several methods. Check this page

Lapce

Check this.

VSCode and Codium

VSCode is and excellent editor, but it is not a fully open source software, and it has some functionalities that are not clear in privacy aspects. If you don’t mind with it, install it. If not, you can use codium.

VSCode

curl -sSL https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -

sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main"

sudo apt update
sudo apt install code

Codium

wget -qO - https://gitlab.com/paulcarroty/vscodium-deb-rpm-repo/raw/master/pub.gpg \
| gpg --dearmor \
| sudo dd of=/usr/share/keyrings/vscodium-archive-keyring.gpg

echo 'deb [ signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/vscodium-archive-keyring.gpg ] https://download.vscodium.com/debs vscodium main' \
| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscodium.list

sudo apt update && sudo apt install codium