IGVC Software Installation Instructions

Welcome! Let's jump right in.

Robojackets IGVC currently supports the Ubuntu 18.04 and ROS-melodic environment. If you don't know what those are, don't worry! The project may build/run in other environments, but we can't guarantee it.

Ok, lets get down to business.

Step 1 - Get Terminator

Forget the default Ubuntu terminal, we need both horizontal and vertical splits for productive activity. Start up the default terminal and type:

sudo apt install terminator

You should now be using this from now on, it will help later,

Step 2 - Set up your sources.list

Now for these next steps you don't need to understand what they do, only make sure they complete properly. So if you see any errors come up, tell one of us immediately. Copy this into your terminal:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

Step 3 - Set up your keys

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

Step 4 - Update your Debian packages

sudo apt update

Step 5 - Get Ros melodic

sudo apt install ros-melodic-desktop-full

Step 6 - Initialize rosdep

sudo rosdep init

rosdep update

Step 7 - Environment Variable Setup

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

source ~/.bashrc

Step 8 - Initialize catkin workspace

cd <path to where you want to keep the project>

mkdir catkin_ws

cd catkin_ws

mkdir src

cd src

catkin_init_workspace

cd ..

catkin_make

• Command should complete and not really do anything
• If init_catkin_workspace failed then ROS did not install correctly and/or try "sudo apt-get update" which may fix the issue where catkin_init_workspace command can not be found

Step 9 - Clone IGVC Repository

• Fork IGVC Github Repository

cd src

git clone <your fork>

Step 10 - Install ROS Dependencies

cd ..

echo "source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

rosdep install --from-path src --ignore-src -y

• rosdep will download and install all of the necessary ros package dependencies, type "y" whenever it asks if it is ok to continue installation

Step 11 - Build the Code

catkin_make

• If this fails the first time try running catkin_make again
• If it continues to fail because it could not find some of the igvc_msgs header files, run "catkin_make igvc_msgs_gencpp" and then "catkin_make"

Step 12 - Run the Code

In a separate terminal roscore

In a terminal that isn't running roscore roslaunch igvc igvc.launch

•  The code should now be running and complaining about not being able to connect to various devices, this is all good and you are ready to start writing igvc code