EnvEase is currently a work in progress and may change without notice.
Environment Ease (EnvEase) is a set of automations for managing the Linux shell environment for ROS software development. Users can fluidly create and switch between environmental profiles for different development projects, largely eliminating the need for manual editing of the bashrc file. It is compatible with both ROS1 and ROS2 environments, including mixed environments using ros1_bridge. The automation can also download and source bash alias files from GitHub for your specific robot platforms and projects.
Blake Anderson
[email protected]
Nuclear and Applied Robotics Group
The University of Texas at Austin
https://github.com/UTNuclearRoboticsPublic/EnvEase
Copyright© The University of Texas at Austin, 2023. All rights reserved.
EnvEase is licenced per the terms of the Apache License, Version 2, as presented in the LICENSE file.
Follow these steps to set up these automated features on your Ubuntu machine.
- Clone this repo to your home directory.
- Open your bashrc script and remove any existing lines for ROS configuration.
- Run the install script. This will place bash scripts in the location /opt/EnvEase, install the envease program to /usr/bin, and create a configuration directory ~/.envease. After running the install script, you may delete the cloned EnvEase directory.
- To uninstall these features, run the uninstall script located in the EnvEase directory.
git clone [email protected]:UTNuclearRoboticsPublic/EnvEase.git ~/EnvEase
gedit ~/.bashrc
(Or whatever other text editor you prefer)
~/EnvEase/install.sh
~/EnvEase/uninstall.sh
After installation, you will have access to the envease program which enables you to create and manage environment profiles from the command line. These profiles allow you to switch between different work contexts (projects, platforms, or toolsets) without editing your bashrc script. An example workflow is given below.
- After installation, you will initially not have any stored environment configurations. Create one using the envease tool. The new configuration file will be opened in your default text editor. Fill out the configuration per the comments in the file, then save and close.
- Then set the newly created configuration as the active configuration.
- After setting a new active configuration, you must source your bashrc script before it will take effect.
- After sourcing the bashrc file, you can check the active environment configuration.
envease add first_config
envease set first_config
source ~/.bashrc
envease show
The variables you set in the first_config configuration file should be reflected in your bash environment going forward. You may go on to create more configurations for different work contexts, and switch between them as needed using envease.
You can view the full instruction set of envease by running it with the help flag.
$ envease -h
usage: envease [-h] {add,modify,cp,rm,rename,set,clear,list,show,verbose} ...
Manages environment configurations for ROS software development.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
subcommands:
{add,modify,cp,rm,rename,set,clear,list,show,verbose}
add Create a new config
modify Modify an existing config
cp Copy a config with a new name
rm Remove a config
rename Rename a config
set Set the active config
clear Delete all the stored configs
list List all the stored configs
show Show the active config
verbose Set the terminal verbosity.
$ envease add -h
usage: envease add [-h] target
positional arguments:
target The name of the new environment configuration.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
You can turn on verbose mode for your terminal environment using the envease program
envease verbose on
Afterwards, new terminals will print out their configuration details. This may be a useful reminder of your current settings if you frequently change them.
Active environment configuration: lanl
Using ros1_bridge from noetic to galactic
Using ROS 1 distribution: noetic
Workspaces: catkin_ws
ros_master_uri: http://localhost:11311/
Using ROS 2 distribution: galactic
Workspaces: lanl_ws
ROS_DOMAIN_ID: 0
blake@blake-workstation:~$
The script will source any alias files that you list in the platform_aliases, tool_aliases, and project_aliases array variables of the environment configuration. For example, setting
platform_aliases=("spot" "walrus")
will cause the script to download the files spot_aliases and walrus_aliases from GitHub, and source them. The GitHub repository is specified using the alias_repo_owner and alias_repo_name variables of the environment configuration. The script will always source the file common_aliases as well. See an example and template for such a GitHub repository here.
You may also put personal aliases in ~/.bash_aliases as usual. This should only be for aliases that are very specific to your own needs that your colleagues would not benefit from having access to.
The installation script places a set of bash script files in /opt/EnvEase. It also adds a line to the end of your ~/.bashrc script, which is run whenever you open a new terminal.
source /opt/EnvEase/envease.sh
This line leads into the scripting functions that process your environment configuration as set using the envease program. Your configurations are stored in the directory ~/.envease, along with the bash alias files that have been downloaded for your configurations.