Ubuntu

How to Install ROS Noetic on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Karim Buzdar

Introduction

ROS (Robot Operating System) is an open-source robotics software framework. It helps design complex software without having a good understanding of the hardware.

Noetic is the new LTS release of ROS compatible with Ubuntu 20.04. It was announced on May 23rd. 2020 and you will get its support up to 2025.

Below is the guide on how to install ROS Noetic on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

Step 1 – Setup ROS Noetic repo

Firstly, we need to add Noetic repo to source.list:

$ echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu focal main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-focal.list

Output:

Step 2 – Add official ROS keyring

Run apt-key command:

$ sudo apt-key adv --keyserver 'hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80' --recv-key C1CF6E31E6BADE8868B172B4F42ED6FBAB17C654

Output:

You can also use the curl:

$ curl -sSL 'http://keyserver.ubuntu.com/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xC1CF6E31E6BADE8868B172B4F42ED6FBAB17C654' | sudo apt-key add -

Output: If the output appears “OK”, it means you have added the key successfully.

Step 3 – Update the ROS package index

Run apt update:

$ sudo apt update

Step 4 – Install ROS Noetic package

The official ROS Noetic has 4 metapackages:

  • ros-noetic-desktop-full
  • ros-noetic-desktop
  • ros-noetic-ros-base
  • ros-noetic-ros-core

We recommend you should use ros-noetic-desktop-full to get the full experience. Let’s choose a package you want.

  1. To install ros-noetic-desktop-full

Run apt command:

$ sudo apt install ros-noetic-desktop-full
  1. To install ros-noetic-desktop

ros-noetic-desktop has 8 packages: vis, angles, common_tutorials, geometry_tutorials, ros_tutorials, roslint, urdf_tutorial and visualization_tutorials.

$ sudo apt install ros-noetic-desktop
  1. To install ros-noetic-base
$ sudo apt install ros-noetic-base
  1. To install ros-noetic-core
$ sudo apt install ros-noetic-core

Step 5 – Set up ROS Noetic environment

You need to run the setup.bash file:

$ source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash

You should add it in the .bashrc file located in the home directory To avoid run the command above every time:

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

Run tail ~/.bashrc to verify:

$ tail ~/.bashrc

Output:

To make it take effect, run:

$ source ~/.bashrc

Step 6 – Verify Noetic installation

You can run roscd command to check if the installation was successful:

$ roscd

Output:

You can see where we have installed noetic in /opt/ros/noetic

You can also use roscore to verify noetic installation:

$ roscore

Output:

Conclusion

You’ve already gone through the details of how to install ROS Noetic on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Thanks for reading.

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