On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Ken Conley <kwc@willowgarage.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 9:50 AM, Jack O'Quin <jack.oquin@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I have several packages that I need to support on both Electric and
>> Fuerte. This involves switching back and forth between those two
>> distributions.
>
> NOTE: when switching, it's best to use a brand new shell to ensure no
> accidental environment cross over.  The more dangerous is going from
> Fuerte->Electric, because Fuerte makes many more libraries
> path-accessible (e.g. Python).

You are right about that. I have to be *very* careful making the
switch, either direction.

>> That works better now, but some things about message generation still
>> confuse me.
>>
>>  * Is the pip installed genmsg-0.1.5 package for Fuerte only, or is it
>> also a replacement for the Electric version?
>
> Do not pip install genmsg.  Only use the version that comes in the
> Debian build.  pip will install into your main PYTHONPATH, instead of
> the sandboxed path.  The debian build uses a prefix install of genmsg.
>
> The new genmsg is for Fuerte only.

I uninstalled the pip version and removed the /usr/local files.

>>  * It is tricky to get the "correct" $PATH set up for both distros.
>> What is the recommended $PATH and genmsg_py.py version?
>
> It looks to me like you may have pip installed genpy as well.  That
> needs to be removed.  Unfortunately, pip uninstall does not remove
> executable symlinks, so you need to remove /usr/local/bin/genmsg*

I did `pip uninstall genpy`, as well.

> NOTE: Electric does not use PATH to find genmsg_* scripts, it looks
> inside of the ROS package.  Only Fuerte is affected by the extra pip
> install.

OK. I'll give it a try using the changes you suggest.

I will rebuild all my working trees, just to clean them.

Thanks, Ken...
-- 
 joq