Skip to main content

Quickstart: Setting up Your ROS 2 Development Environment

Overview​

This quickstart guide will help you set up a basic development environment for working with ROS 2, which is essential for following the examples and exercises in "Part 2: The Robotic Nervous System – ROS 2" of this textbook.

Prerequisites​

  • A computer running Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish) or 20.04 (Focal Fossa). While ROS 2 supports other operating systems, Ubuntu is the recommended and most widely supported.
  • Basic familiarity with the Linux command line.
  • Internet connection for downloading packages.

Step 1: Install ROS 2​

Follow the official ROS 2 documentation for your specific Ubuntu version. For Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish) and ROS 2 Humble Hawksbill:

  1. Set up your sources: 
    sudo apt update && sudo apt install locales
    sudo locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8
    sudo update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
    export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

    sudo apt install software-properties-common
    sudo add-apt-repository universe
  2. Add the ROS 2 GPG key: 
    sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl -y
    sudo curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.key -o /usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg
  3. Add the repository to your sources list: 
    echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg] http://packages.ros.org/ros2/ubuntu $(. /etc/os-release && echo UBUNTU_CODENAME) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2.list > /dev/null
  4. Install ROS 2 packages: 
    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install ros-humble-desktop
    This will install ROS 2 Humble Hawksbill desktop environment.

Step 2: Environment Setup​

Source the ROS 2 setup files to make ROS 2 commands available in your terminal.

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash

To permanently add this to your shell, add it to your ~/.bashrc (for Bash) or ~/.zshrc (for Zsh):

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

Step 3: Install colcon (ROS 2 Build Tool)​

colcon is the build tool used in ROS 2.

sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions
  1. Install VS Code: Follow instructions from the official VS Code website (code.visualstudio.com).
  2. Recommended Extensions:
    • ROS: Provides ROS 2 support, including launch file integration, debugging.
    • C/C++: For C++ development.
    • Python: For Python development.
    • Python Black Formatter: For PEP 8 compliant Python code formatting.
    • Clang-Format: For C++ code formatting.

Step 5: Test Your Installation​

Run a simple ROS 2 example to verify your setup:

  1. Open two terminal windows.
  2. In the first terminal, run the talker: 
    source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
    ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp talker
  3. In the second terminal, run the listener: 
    source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
    ros2 run demo_nodes_py listener
    You should see messages being exchanged between the talker and listener.

Congratulations! Your ROS 2 development environment is now set up.