Getting Started with ROS2: Installing ROS2 Dashing on Linux using APT

Description

• Installing ROS2 Dashing using APT in a Linux environment

• Test environment: Ubuntu 18.04 + ROS2 Dashing

Installation Steps

• Set the language environment

$ 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

• Add the key

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl gnupg2 lsb-release
$ curl http://repo.ros2.org/repos.key | sudo apt-key add -

• Then add the repository to the source list:

$ sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64,arm64] http://packages.ros.org/ros2/ubuntu `lsb_release -cs` main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2-latest.list'

• Install the ROS2 package

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install ros-dashing-desktop

• Install argcomplete

$ sudo apt install python3-argcomplete

• Sourcing the setup script in .bashrc

$ echo "source /opt/ros/dashing/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

• Install additional middleware

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install ros-dashing-rmw-opensplice-cpp # for OpenSplice
$ sudo apt install ros-dashing-rmw-connext-cpp # for RTI Connext (requires license agreement)

• By setting the environment variable <span>RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_opensplice_cpp</span>, you can switch to use OpenSplice instead. For ROS 2 releases Bouncy and newer, <span>RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_connext_cpp</span> can also be selected to use RTI Connext.

• If you want to install the Connext DDS-Security plugins please refer to this page.

• University, purchase or evaluation options are also available for RTI Connext.

Testing Usage

• In a new terminal, run the talker example

$ ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp talker

• In a new terminal, run the listener example

$ ros2 run demo_nodes_py listener