[ros-users] ROS Installation

"Jan Tünnermann" jeti at goffa.de
Thu Jul 15 09:22:57 UTC 2010


Hi,
I'm also rather new to ROS so I can only give you some hints on some aspects.

> Why is the Ubuntu install
> (Pre-compiled binaries) considered to be "not optimal" compared to
> "Installing on Ubuntu from SVN"?
>
> Is there any reason why I would prefer to  install on Ubuntu from SVN?

I don't really know, but as I tried both, I think the SVN one is less
complicated. The rosinstall script takes care about almost everything and
will create the setup.sh for setting the environment variables.

> Pre-compiled libraries prevents me from modifying the original code (prior
> to pre-compiling), so is it implied that I would *almost never* need to
> modify such code?
>
> Is the fact that I can't modify pre-compiled code the reason that
> installing Pre-compiled binaries is considered "not optimal"? (stated on
> http://www.ros.org/wiki/ROS/Installation/Ubuntu/Deb )

I doubt that thats the reason, as the library code should usually not be
needed to touch.


> If I install on Ubuntu from SVN, do I need to first need to install SVN if
> I want to use Code:Blocks to do SVN-based builds(is this a correct
> concept?)
You need SVN, on ubutnu you should install it via sudo apt-get install
subversion.
I have never worked with code:blocks but you need SVN to check out the code.
Even if code:blocks comes with GUI for that, it will probably depend on SVN.

>  (does that also imply that SVN must be installed before Code:Blocks?) ?
Not necessarily. If it depends  SVN it will pull the package. If not it
shouldn't matter.

Also, ROS comes with an make-system based on cmake and some custom tools
to resolve dependencies. Compiling ros modules is usually just a matter of
typing "rosmake bla" in the command line. So all ou need is an editor. If
you prefer some IDE like code:blocks you will need to configure it to use
the ros build tools.

> I see that I can choose to install "ROS Only", "Base" or "PR2".
> Can't I install them all and use them all?

Of course you can use them all. I think it's just because there is a lot
of ROS code for various plattforms so you would usually not need
everything. So if you are not developing for the pr2, why would you want
all the PR2 stuff. I would recommend to go for 'Base', as I think it has
the tutorials and everything thats usually needed.


> What is the correct install order?: SVN, C++ compiler,
> Player/Stage/Gazebo, Code:Blocks, and then ROS?
The package manager will take care of pulling packages if they are
required for another package, so your save to install everything (svn,
build-essential, ...) via apt-get (except the ros stuff which you probably
wnat to install via SVN)


> Is there anything special I must do on the ROS side of things if I want to
> use Orocos or URBI with ROS?
> Do you recommend I use Orocos or URBI for the real-time orchestration of
> ROS?
I don't know these packages. But ususally you will install them in some
way separately as a stack and add the path to the ros package path
environment variable, so that rosmake and rosdep will find them.

> I like to begin using the PR2 software and simulation as a starting point
> to learn more about using ROS after I do the tutorials of course.
Oh ok, then you probably will need to get the "PR2" installation. But it
should also include everything basic so you will not to need to install
all three but just this one.

i hope this helped
jan

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