ROS1 Installation
This document provides a guide for setting up the ROS1 Noetic environment.
- It is recommended to perform the following operations using VNC remote desktop or a connected display.
- The ROS environment is set up in a Docker container. It is recommended to install and learn how to use Docker first.
- Ubuntu is the officially preferred and primarily supported distribution for ROS. We will set up the ROS environment using a Docker Ubuntu image.
Pull Docker Image
Use the docker pull command to download the Ubuntu 20.04 Docker image.
docker pull ubuntu:20.04
Create Docker Script
Start an Ubuntu 20.04 Docker container using a script.
You need to create a startup script named ros_noetic.sh:
vi ros_noetic.sh
Add the following content to the ros_noetic.sh script:
#!/bin/bash
xhost +
docker run -it \
--net=host \
--env="DISPLAY" \
--env="QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1" \
-v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \
ubuntu:20.04 /bin/bash
Parameter explanation:
xhost +: Allows Docker container to access the X11 server-it: Run the container in interactive mode--net=host: Use the host's network stack--env="DISPLAY": Set environment variable for X11 graphical interface display--env="QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1": Set environment variable for Qt application display-v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix: Mount X11 Unix domain socket for X11 graphical interface displayubuntu:20.04: Use Ubuntu 20.04 image/bin/bash: Start Bash shell inside the container
Start Docker Container
Use the bash command to run the script.
bash ros_noetic.sh
Install Noetic
Check Encoding Environment
Ensure the environment for installing Noetic supports UTF-8 encoding.
locale
If the system encoding format is UTF-8, you should see output similar to the following in the terminal:
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=
If the terminal output does not show UTF-8 encoding, you can install and configure the encoding environment by running the following commands:
apt update && apt install locales
locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8
echo "export LANG=en_US.UTF-8" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
Set Up Software Repository and Key
Ensure your system is up to date, then add the Tsinghua ROS repository and its key.
apt update && apt upgrade
apt install lsb-core
sh -c '. /etc/lsb-release && echo "deb http://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/ros/ubuntu/ `lsb_release -cs` main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
apt-key adv --keyserver 'hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80' --recv-key C1CF6E31E6BADE8868B172B4F42ED6FBAB17C654
Install Noetic
Use the following command to install the full desktop version of Noetic.
apt update && apt upgrade
apt install ros-noetic-desktop-full -y
Install Dependencies
Use the following command to install Noetic's dependency packages.
apt install python3-rosdep python3-rosinstall python3-rosinstall-generator python3-wstool build-essential -y
Initialize rosdep
Use the following commands to initialize rosdep.
rosdep init
rosdep update
If you encounter the error ERROR: cannot download default sources list from: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/rosdep/sources.list.d/20-default.list Website may be down. when running rosdep init, visit https://www.ipaddress.com/ to search for the raw.githubusercontent.com domain and add the IP address to the /etc/hosts file.
vi /etc/hosts
Add the following line:
185.199.110.133 raw.githubusercontent.com
Then run the rosdep initialization commands again.
Set Environment Variables
Set up the environment variables with the following commands:
echo "source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
Verify ROS Environment
To verify that the ROS environment is set up correctly, run the following command in the terminal:
roscore
If the installation was successful, you should see output similar to the following:
... logging to /root/.ros/log/a9473172-5731-11f0-9a87-5acb6b3cedae/roslaunch-rock-4d-spi-27211.log
Checking log directory for disk usage. This may take a while.
Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
Done checking log file disk usage. Usage is <1GB.
started roslaunch server http://rock-4d-spi:34861/
ros_comm version 1.17.4
# SUMMARY
PARAMETERS
- /rosdistro: noetic
- /rosversion: 1.17.4
NODES
auto-starting new master
process[master]: started with pid [27219]
ROS_MASTER_URI=http://rock-4d-spi:11311/
setting /run_id to a9473172-5731-11f0-9a87-5acb6b3cedae
process[rosout-1]: started with pid [27229]
started core service [/rosout]
Press Ctrl + C to stop roscore.
Save Docker Image
Currently, all our modifications are based on the Ubuntu 20.04 Docker container. We need to save this modified container as an image for future use.
Note: If you don't save it as an image, you'll need to reinstall the ROS environment the next time you start a container.
View Running Containers
In a new terminal on Cubie A7A (not inside the Docker container), run the following command to view running containers:
docker ps
Commit Container as Image
In the same terminal (not inside the Docker container), run the following command to commit the container as a new image:
You'll need to modify the command based on the container ID from the docker ps output.
docker commit [CONTAINER ID] [NEW NAME]
# Example
docker commit e5c795d8ca66 ros_noetic:1.0
Wait for the commit to complete. Upon successful completion, you'll see output similar to:
sha256:43b559a4d879c83477764730e0af90e8904e8fb8aeeeb9b653967e665bb7a7ca
Modify Startup Script
Modify the startup script ros_noetic.sh to use the newly saved image:
#!/bin/bash
xhost +
docker run -it \
--net=host \
--env="DISPLAY" \
--env="QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1" \
-v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \
ros_noetic:1.0 /bin/bash