ROS2 Development VM

This Virtual Machine Appliance provides a development environment for working on ROS2 projects. It is based on Arch Linux and ships with a number of packages pre-installed, most notably:

• ROS2
• Visual Studio Code Insiders

IMPORTANT: Update ROS2 Repository Settings

If you are using an older build of the VM, you will probably need to update the ROS2 repository configuration. Replace the current [ros2] entry in /etc/pacman.conf by this one:

[ros2]
Server = https://arch.arknet.ch/ros2
SigLevel = Never

Getting Started

First and foremost, you need to know how to log in into the virtual machine. Use the following default credentials:

user

hsr

password

asimov

Git Setup

Make sure to set up your git user name and email address. To do so open a terminal via Applications -> System Tools -> MATE Terminal and use the following commands to set your git configuration:

$ git config --global user.name "<your_name_here>"
$ git config --global user.email "<your_email_address_here>"

Github SSH Setup

You may also want to generate a new SSH key-pair for use with the remote git repository. You can do this from the terminal using the following commands:

$ ssh-keygen -t ed25519

You may accept the defaults by simply pressing return when asked for the target file name and password. You will need to register the newly generated SSH key with GitHub. To do so, you will need to register the public part of your new SSH key-pair. You can print your public key using the following command from any terminal:

$ cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Public keys look similar to this:

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIFD7+VSLGvsMY5LATCPQPFi8+tMLf1OiDnwBWfavZENK hsr@vm

If your output looks like a garbled mess, you more than likely have tried to print your private instead of yout public key. It is important, that you never share your private key with anyone!

You will then need to log in to your github account using a webbrowser. The virtual machine provides you with a simple integrated browser, but you might want to use an external browser on your host system. When you have logged in to your account, click the avatar in the upper right corner.

From the drop-down menu select Settings. This will take you to the settings page of your github account. From there, select SSH and GPG keys from the menu on the left side of the page.

This will take you to a settings page that will allow you to manage you SSH and GPG keys. Click the New SSH key button on the top right-hand side of this page.

You will now be presented with an input form, that allows you to register new SSH public keys for authentication with github. Simply paste your public key in the field labled Key. Make sure that you are pasting your public key, not your private key! You may want to give your new key a title that allows you to remember what it is used for. The last step in registering your SSH key with Github is to click the Add SSH key button.

Initial Clone

You are now ready to clone the boarAI Firmware repository. Firstly you will create a new directory called code. All source code associated with the project will live there. After creating the directory, simply clone the firmware repository. You can use the commands shown below to achive both tasks:

$ mkdir ~/code
$ git clone --recurse-submodules [email protected]:ILT-HSR/boarai-firmware.git code/firmware

During clone process you may need to confirm the authenticity of github.com. Do this by entering yes and hit return.

Building the Code

ROS2 uses the colcon meta-build utility, making it easy to build the firmware code. Simply open a terminal and change to your clone of the firmware repository. If you have followed this guide up to this point, you can use the following command to do this:

$ cd ~/code/firmware

With your working directory being set to the location of your firmware clone, simply issue the following command to build the firmware:

$ colcon build --symlink-install

Note that the build process make take some time, especially when starting from a clean clone.

IDE Setup

The virtual machine provides you with an installation of Visual Studio Code Insiders. The firmware repository includes configuration files to make the use of VSCode easier. If you closed the old terminal instance, open a new one and change your working directory to your clone of the firmware repository. From there, use the following command to start VSCode in your clone:

code-insiders .

Give the IDE some time when starting up. It will most likely ask you, if you want to install the extensions recommended by the workspace, look out for a notification in the lower right-hand corner

Simply click the Install All button and give the IDE some time to install the extensions. After the installation has finished, VSCode might ask you to reload the IDE. Either click the Reload button if one is provided or press the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+P and type Reload Window into the pop-up at the top center of the IDE window (make sure you don't delete the > at the start of the text field!) and hit return.

Working on Different Layers

The boarAI Firmware is separated into different layers/packages. Since every package will have a different set of dependencies as well as source files, the firmware repository includes a set of different configuration for the C++ IDE plugin. You can switch between these configurations by bringing up the command interface of the IDE (using the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+P) and typing "Select a Configuration". Hit return, and the IDE will present you with list of diffrent configurations to choose from. Simply select the appropriate configuration for the subsystem you are working on.

It might take a couple of seconds for the IDE to reload the plugin configuration.