What we are going to learn

1. What is a Debian package and what is it used for
2. How to get the building dependencies
3. How to initialize rosdep
4. How to create a Debian installable package
5. How to install a ROS2 package from a local Debian installable file

List of resources used in this post

1. The previous part of this series: https://www.theconstruct.ai/how-to-release-a-ros-2-binary-package-part-2-2/
2. Use the rosject: https://app.theconstructsim.com/l/5142d6f5/
3. The Construct: https://app.theconstructsim.com/
4. ROS2 Courses –▸
   1. ROS2 Basics in 5 Days (Python): https://app.theconstructsim.com/#/Course/73
   2. ROS2 Basics in 5 Days (C++): https://app.theconstructsim.com/#/Course/61
   3. ROS2 Navigation (Galactic): https://app.theconstructsim.com/Course/109
   4. ROS2 Navigation training: https://www.theconstruct.ai/ros2-navigation-training/

Overview

ROS2, the improved version of ROS (ROS1), is quickly becoming the standard for developing robotics applications.

In this post, we will take a look at how to build a local Debian package out of a ROS 2 package that you have in your system. Private Debian packages (*.deb files) are easy to share, install, upgrade and uninstall without you having to share any source code.

You can easily install them with sudo dpkg -i pkg-name.deb, for example.

It is highly recommended that you follow the previous posts of this series:

• https://www.theconstruct.ai/how-to-release-a-ros-2-binary-package-part-1-2
• https://www.theconstruct.ai/how-to-release-a-ros-2-binary-package-part-2-2/

ROS Inside!

ROS Inside

Before anything else, in case you want to use the logo above on your own robot or computer, feel free to download it for free and attach it to your robot. It is really free. Find it in the link below:

ROS Inside logo

Acknowledgment

This post is based on ROS2’s official documentation, check it out here:

This notebook is based on the official instructions.

Opening the rosject

In order to follow this tutorial, we need to have ROS2 installed in our system, and ideally a ros2_ws (ROS2 Workspace). To make your life easier, we already prepared a rosject with a simulation for that: https://app.theconstructsim.com/l/5142d6f5/.

You can download the rosject on your own computer if you want to work locally, but just by copying the rosject (clicking the link), you will have a setup already prepared for you.

After the rosject has been successfully copied to your own area, you should see a Run button. Just click that button to launch the rosject (below you have a rosject example).

Learn ROS2 Topics vs Service vs Action – Run rosject (example of the RUN button)

After pressing the Run button, you should have the rosject loaded. Now, let’s head to the next section to get some real practice.

Compiling the ros2_ws (ROS 2 Workspace)

In the rosject link shared above, we have the ros2_draw_squares package developed by GitHub user samialperen. The package will be used in our example and can be found at https://github.com/samialperen/ros2_move_robot.

Let’s start by compiling the ros2_draw_squares package that is inside the ~/ros2_ws/src folder. In order to do that, we need a terminal. You can open one by clicking the Open a new terminal button.

Open a new Terminal

Once the terminal is open, we can compile the package using the following commands:

cd ~/ros2_ws

colcon build

source install/setup.bash

Starting the simulation

Before showing the process of creating the Debian file, let’s see it in action first through a robot simulation.

Let’s start by exporting the GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH variable to the location of the turtlebot3 model files, so that the Gazebo Simulator can show the robot properly:

source install/setup.bash

export GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH=/home/user/ros2_ws/src/turtlebot3_simulations/turtlebot3_gazebo/models:${GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH}

export GAZEBO_RESOURCE_PATH=/home/user/ros2_ws/src/turtlebot3_simulations/turtlebot3_gazebo:${GAZEBO_RESOURCE_PATH}

export TURTLEBOT3_MODEL=waffle

We can now finally start the simulation with the following command:

ros2 launch turtlebot3_gazebo empty_world.launch.py

You should see the Gazebo simulator pop up with an empty world.

Now, open a second Terminal, and run the service server node using the command below:

ros2 launch ros2_draw_squares move_robot_in_square_service_server.launch.py

And from a third terminal, we can run the service move_robot_in_square.

ros2 service call /move_robot_in_square std_srvs/srv/Trigger '{}'

If everything went ok, in the simulation window you should have seen the Turtlebot robot moving in a square-like format.

Turblebot robot moving in a square-like format

Alright, we already saw the package in action. Now let us see the process of converting it into a Debian file.

Feel free to kill the existing simulation by pressing CTRL+C in the three terminals.

What is a Debian package and what is it used for?

-ros2_draw_squares
 |-package.xml
 |-launch
 | |-call_move_robot_in_square_service_server.launch.py
 | |-move_robot_in_square_service_server.launch.py
 |-include
 | |-ros2_draw_squares
 | | |-move_robot.hpp
 |-README.md
 |-src
 | |-move_robot.cpp
 | |-move_robot_in_square_service_server.cpp
 | |-move_robot_in_square_service_client.cpp
 | |-move_robot_node.cpp
 |-CMakeLists.txt

sudo apt update

sudo apt install python3-bloom python3-rosdep fakeroot dh-make

This will install the tools python3-bloom python3-rosdep, fakeroot, and dh-make packages.

Since this can take a while to install, you just have to wait a bit for it to finish.

Check the ROS2 package dependencies

cat ~/ros2_ws/src/ros2_draw_squares/package.xml

We just have to make sure all package dependencies are listed using the correct dependency tag. If when creating your own package you are not sure what kind of dependency a package is, you can use <depend> tag to specify that the dependency is a build, export, and execution one.

sudo rosdep init

You might see the following error if rosdep has already been initialized in the past:

ERROR: default sources list file already exists:
        /etc/ros/rosdep/sources.list.d/20-default.list
Please delete if you wish to re-initialize

Don't worry. This error message can be ignored since it has no effect whatsoever.

Create a Debian installable package

In order to creat the Debian package, let's start by moving to your package root directory, which is the directory that contains the package.xml file (using the first terminal):

cd ~/ros2_ws/src/ros2_draw_squares

After that, let’s use the bloom-generate command:

bloom-generate rosdebian

The expected output is something similar to the following:

bloom-generate rosdebian output

 

If for whatever reason you get an error message like the one below:

Could not resolve rosdep key

This means that rosdep could not find that particular package dependency. Verify if the package must be indexed in the rosdistro by creating a PR.

After successfully running the above command, you should get a directory named debian in the current directory, which contains the compiled files and rules required to create the Debian file. The “ls” command output should be like this:

 CMakeLists.txt  README.md  debian  include  launch  package.xml  src

Use the following command to create a Debian package:

fakeroot debian/rules binary

We should see something similar to the following animation:

fakeroot expected output

cd ..

ls

Which should show us the following:

Debian file created

sudo dpkg --install ros-galactic-ros2-draw-squares_0.0.0-0focal_amd64.deb

dpkg install output

dpkg --info ros-galactic-ros2-draw-squares_0.0.0-0focal_amd64.deb

Once we have the name, we can display where the files in the deb package got installed to:

dpkg -L ros-galactic-ros2-draw-squares

We can see that this package is now installed in the same location where the main ROS 2 installation is located.

Finally, in case you want to uninstall this package, we can easily do it also with dpkg:

sudo dpkg -P ros-galactic-ros2-draw-squares

And if you want to take it further from here, you can even create your own apt repository to host your private ROS2 .deb packages, but that’s a story for another time.

Congratulations on reaching the end of this tutorial. We hope this post was really helpful to you.

If you want a live version of this post with more details, please check the video in the next section.

Youtube video

So this is the post for today. Remember that we have the live version of this post on YouTube. If you liked the content, please consider subscribing to our youtube channel. We are publishing new content ~every day.

Keep pushing your ROS Learning.

Related Courses & Training

If you want to learn more about ROS and ROS2, we recommend the following courses:

• ROS2 Basics in 5 Days (Python): https://app.theconstructsim.com/#/Course/73
• ROS2 Basics in 5 Days (C++): https://app.theconstructsim.com/#/Course/61
• ROS2 Navigation (Galactic): https://app.theconstructsim.com/Course/109
• ROS2 Navigation training: https://www.theconstruct.ai/ros2-navigation-training/