[ros-users] clarifying package installation 'best practices'?

[G.A. vd. Hoorn - 3ME]

On 04/03/15 14:02, Dirk Thomas wrote:
> Please propose a change to the package header in the wiki.
> While the information might be platform specific it could be helpful.
>
> The patch will need to be applied to the following function:
> https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/roswiki/blob/c92f7e3a490e4b5a72cc7b290287a4e2d23d8425/macro/headers.py#L265

Are you sure that is the correct function? I would've expected to add an 
entry to the unordered list that gets generated in get_description(..)?


> Please note that the package manifest available in the "data" variable is
> not the package.xml file but the content of the manifest.yaml files
> generated by the doc jobs.
> See http://docs.ros.org/indigo/api/roscpp_tutorials/manifest.yaml for an
> example manifest.yaml.
>
> Thanks,
> - Dirk
>
> On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 1:42 PM, Jonathan Bohren <jonathan.bohren at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I think this is a great idea. I can't say the likelihood that this gets
>> added to the wiki, but I'd be happy to accept a PR to add this to
>> http://rosindex.github.io
>>
>> https://github.com/rosindex/rosindex/issues/142
>>
>> -j
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 4, 2015, 03:44 G.A. vd. Hoorn - 3ME <
>> g.a.vanderhoorn at tudelft.nl> wrote:
>>
>>> All,
>>>
>>>
>>> just wondering whether we should somehow clarify what the current 'best
>>> practices' are for installing packages onto a ROS pc. I see a lot of
>>> people that assume that building from source (after cloning from a
>>> repository) is _the_ way to do things.
>>>
>>> Apart from the fact that this is essentially a waste of time and effort,
>>> it also often leads to problems (as they forget to check for and / or
>>> install all dependencies first), which then results in numerous ROS
>>> Answers questions. Having the sources locally also seems to invite some
>>> users to start editing / hard coding parameters (such as IPs / serial
>>> ports) into nodes, which is obviously unwanted.
>>>
>>> Somehow I have a feeling that the prominent placing of the repository
>>> URL in the Package Summary contributes to the confusion.
>>>
>>> Would it perhaps be an idea to add a one-liner to the 'Package Summary'
>>> on wiki pages of released packages that shows users how to install it
>>> ("Installation: sudo apt-get install ros-$release-pkg-name", although
>>> that is distribution specific)? Or a link to a (new) wiki page that
>>> explains how to install packages in general (with the from-source option
>>> shown last)?
>>>
>>>
>>> Gijs