ROS Installs

This repository contains wstool "rosinstall" files for the Personal Robotics Lab: related groups of packages installed from source control, usually used in the context of a catkin workspace.

How-To

Workspace Setup

wstool may be used for any kind of project, but is particularly relevant for catkin src folders.

1. Install wstools with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install python-wstool or pip install wstool if you have not already

2. Create a workspace

    mkdir -p my_workspace/src
    cd my_workspace/src
    catkin_init_workspace # optionally init catkin workspace
    wstool init # init .rosinstall file
   

We use https:// for repositories to make it easier to checkout on multiple machines that may not have ssh keys setup. To ease mass checkouts and updates, you may want to enable git credential caching with:

git config --global credential.helper 'cache --timeout=120'

Using git@github... for repositories allows you to take advantage of ssh keys. If you are using the rosinstall files on your own PC you may use the included converter script to switch back and forth:

convert --to-ssh some.rosinstall
convert --to-https some.rosinstall

If you do not have you keys setup please see GitHub's how-to or ask your system administrator.

Add External *.rosinstall Files to Your Project

To use the rosinstall files, check this repository out (e.g. to ~/pr-rosinstalls), then execute the following after running wstool init in your workspace src folder:

# add all herbpy repositories to your .rosinstall without duplicates
wstool merge ~/pr-rosinstalls/herb-minimal-sim.rosinstall
wstool up # update/clone your .rosinstall repositories

Add Additional Repositories to Your Project

To add an repository to your project's .rosinstall file, run the following after wstool init:

# add repository to .rosinstall
wstool set some_repo https://github.com/user/some_repo.git --git
wstool up # update/clone your .rosinstall repositories

Add New PRL *.rosinstall File

Before committing a new file, make sure there is not already a rosinstall file that covers your workspace but under a name you did not expect.

1. Prepare a new clean workspace

    mkdir -p new_workspace/src
    cd new_workspace/src
    wstool init
   

2. Install all repositories and verify it works as desired

    wstool set repo1 https://github.com/user/repo1.git --git 
    ... # repeat for all repos
    wstool up
   

   • prefer https:// to ease multi-system setups, you may use the converter script to convert before committing

3. Rename .rosinstall to something meaningful before committing

    cp .rosinstall ~/pr-rosinstall/skynet.rosinstall