Robotics: Principles and Practice - Software Installation Guide
This page provides a step-by-step guide to installing the tools, utilities, and example software for Robotics: Principles and Practice with robot simulators and physical robots on Ubuntu 16.04 with ROS.
Please follow these instructions exactly as they are stated.
Do not be tempted to skip through them, assuming that you will be able to figure it out yourself. You might, but it is more likely you will miss something small but important and it won't work as required. Take your time, follow these instructions carefully, and everything will work.
There are two options:
- Use a VirtualBox Ubuntu 16.04 virtual machine (VM) with everything pre-installed
- Install all the required tools and utilities on a computer running Ubuntu 16.04
We cover both in the following, starting with Option 1
Contents
Option 1: VirtualBox Ubuntu 16.04 Virtual Machine
Install VirtualBox
I assume that you are running Windows 10 Pro. Please contact me if you are running a different operating system. For completeness, I have included instructions for Mac OS and Ubuntu (in case you already have Ubuntu but want to use the VM instead of installing all the required tools and utilities).
Windows
Open the VirtualBox Download page at https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads and select Windows hosts to download the installation file. Make a note of the version number (it is 6.1.26 at time of writing); you'll need this later when downloading the VirtualBox Extensions Pack.
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Run the downloaded file (
VirtualBox-6.1.26-145957-Win.exe
at time of writing) and follow the instructions.
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The CPU needs to support virtualization to run a VM on Windows. The virtualization can be enabled in the BIOS. To get into the BIOS settings restart your machine, hit the settings button while booting (try F2, F8 and F10) and go into the CPU settings. There is something like 'Intel Virtual Technology' or 'CPU Virtualization' which needs to be enabled.
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Option 2: Installation of All Required Tools and Utilities on a Computer running Ubuntu 16.04
Ubuntu 16.04
If you don’t already have it, install Ubuntu 16.04
You can get an Ubuntu 16.04 image here.
There is a tutorial on installing Ubuntu 16.04 alongside Windows 10 (dual boot) here.
Disclaimer: I have not validated this tutorial. If you know of a better one, please tell me
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