ROS2 (Foxy) Installation

July 11, 2021 by Abdur Rosyid

The main tutorial page for ROS2 Foxy can be found here: https://docs.ros.org/en/foxy/index.html

It is recommended to install a Long-Term Suppport (LTS) ROS2 distro. This tutorial describes the installation of ROS2 Foxy on Ubuntu 20. There are two ways to install ROS2: 1) from source and 2) from binary (Debian installer).

Step 1: Make sure you already install the compatible distribution of Ubuntu. For ROS2 Foxy, you need Ubuntu 20.

Step 2: Install ROS2. It is recommended to install the “Desktop Install” ROS2 installation.

To install ROS2 from Debian installer, follow the instruction here: https://docs.ros.org/en/foxy/Installation/Ubuntu-Install-Debians.html

Step 3: Create and build your overlay ROS2 workspace, let’s say it is called “ros2_ws”, in home directory.

mkdir -p ~/ros2_ws/src
cd ~/ros2_ws
colcon build

Step 4: Source ROS2 from ~/.bashrc so that you don’t need to source it every time you open a new terminal. First, open your bashrc by using gedit:

gedit ~/.bashrc

After that, add the following in your bashrc file:

source /opt/ros/foxy/setup.bash
source install/local_setup.bash 
source install/setup.bash

Step 5: Check your ROS2 installation by running a simple publisher and a simple listener.

Open a terminal and type the following to run a simple publisher node called “talker”:

ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp talker

Afterwards, open another terminal and run a simple listener node called “listener”:

ros2 run demo_nodes_py listener

Step 6: Install Gazebo 11.

Follow the following installation instruction: http://gazebosim.org/tutorials?tut=install_ubuntu

Now you can launch Gazebo by typing the following on a terminal:

gazebo

Step 7: Install Gazebo-ROS packages. It is easy to install it from binary:

sudo apt install ros-foxy-gazebo-ros-pkgs

Step 8: Install colcon

sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions

Step 9: Install git

sudo apt install git

Step 10: Install the development tools:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y \
  build-essential \
  cmake \
  git \
  libbullet-dev \
  python3-colcon-common-extensions \
  python3-flake8 \
  python3-pip \
  python3-pytest-cov \
  python3-rosdep \
  python3-setuptools \
  python3-vcstool \
  wget
# install some pip packages needed for testing
python3 -m pip install -U \
  argcomplete \
  flake8-blind-except \
  flake8-builtins \
  flake8-class-newline \
  flake8-comprehensions \
  flake8-deprecated \
  flake8-docstrings \
  flake8-import-order \
  flake8-quotes \
  pytest-repeat \
  pytest-rerunfailures \
  pytest
# install Fast-RTPS dependencies
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends -y \
  libasio-dev \
  libtinyxml2-dev
# install Cyclone DDS dependencies
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends -y \
  libcunit1-dev

Step 11: Install ROS2 Control packages from source (in your overlay workspace). It is recommended to install it from source to get the up-to-date capabilities as ROS2 Control is still in the development.

sudo apt-get install ros-foxy-hardware-interface
cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone -b foxy-devel https://github.com/ros-controls/control_msgs
git clone https://github.com/ros-controls/control_toolbox
git clone https://github.com/ros-controls/ros2_control.git
git clone https://github.com/ros-controls/ros2_controllers.git
git clone https://github.com/ros-controls/ros2_control_demos.git
cd ~/ros2_ws
colcon build

Installing ROS2 Control Demos is optional, but it is good to install it to learn from the demos.

Step 12: Install Gazebo_ROS2_Control

sudo apt-get install ros-foxy-gazebo-ros2-control

Optional packages – The steps below are optional, i.e. you can do them if you want to install some additional packages.

Step 13 (optional): Install ROS2 Foxy demos and examples.

sudo apt install ros-foxy-ros-testing
git clone -b foxy https://github.com/ros2/demos
git clone -b foxy https://github.com/ros2/examples

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