ROS Setup¶

In this exercise, we will setup ROS to be used from the terminal.

Motivation¶

In order to start programming in ROS, you should know how to install ROS on a new machine as well and check that the installation worked properly. This module will walk you through a few simple checks of your installed ROS system. Assuming you are working from the VM, you can skip any installation instructions as ROS is already installed.

Reference Example¶

Configuring ROS

Further Information and Resources¶

ROS2 Eloquent Installation Instructions

Scan-N-Plan Application: Problem Statement¶

We believe we have a good installation of ROS but let’s test it to make sure.

Scan-N-Plan Application: Guidance¶

Setup ~/.bashrc¶

If you are ever having problems finding or using your ROS packages make sure that you have your environment properly setup. A good way to check is to ensure that environment variables that ROS sets are present:
```
printenv | grep ROS
printenv | grep AMENT
```
If they are not then you might need to ‘source’ some setup.*sh files.
```
source /opt/ros/eloquent/setup.bash
```
In a “bare” ROS install, you will need to run this command on every new shell you open to have access to the ROS commands. One of the setup steps in a typical ROS install is to add that command to the end of your ~/.bashrc file, which is run automatically in every new terminal window. Check that your .bashrc file has already been configured to source the ROS-melodic setup.bash script:
```
tail ~/.bashrc
```

This process allows you to install several ROS distributions (even ROS1 and ROS2) on the same computer and switch between them by sourcing the distribution-specific setup.bash file.