Install Software on your Netbook (Existing Ubuntu Installation)

These instructions are for the ROS Electric release, if you want to install Diamondback, see these alternate instructions.

Overview

These instructions will guide you through installing the TurtleBot software on a netbook with Ubuntu already installed.

Setup a User Account

To create a "turtlebot" user account:

sudo adduser turtlebot

Installing ROS

Configure your Ubuntu repositories

Configure your Ubuntu repositories to allow "restricted," "universe," and "multiverse." You can follow the Ubuntu guide for instructions on doing this.

Setup your sources.list

Setup your computer to accept software from ROS.org.

  • Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid)

    • sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu lucid main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

    Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick)

    • sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu maverick main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

    Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty)

    • sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu natty main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

    Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric)

    • sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu oneiric main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

Set up your keys

  • wget http://packages.ros.org/ros.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -

Installation

Make sure you have re-indexed the ROS.org server:

sudo apt-get update

Install SSH to allow remote connections and install your TurtleBot software:

sudo apt-get install ros-electric-turtlebot-robot

Environment setup

It's convenient if the ROS environment variables are automatically added to your bash session every time a new shell is launched:

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

If you have more than one ROS distribution installed, ~/.bashrc must only source the setup.bash for the version you are currently using.

If you just want to change the environment of your current shell, you can type:

source /opt/ros/electric/setup.bash

Configure Upstart

It is recommended to use Upstart to start your robot:

roscd turtlebot_bringup/upstart
sudo ./install.bash wlan0

You should replace wlan0 with the name of your wifi interface.

For Ubuntu 11.10 , install daemontools which is need by turtlebot_start.

sudo apt-get install daemontools

Network Time Protocol

Clock synchronization is important for ROS. Chrony has been found to be the best ntp client over lossy wireless. In case of robot behaves strange when messages are sent from PC application(like rviz, rqt, or ros node running in PC), you need clock synchronization.

  1. Install Chrony
    • sudo apt-get install chrony
  2. manually sync NTP
    • sudo ntpdate ntp.ubuntu.com

Wiki: Robots/TurtleBot/Robot Install (last edited 2011-11-26 04:14:19 by JamesRonald)