I want to learn ros-kinetic
from a virtual machine. I found that ros-indigo
is available from nootrix; similarly, is there a virtual machine with ros-kinetic version available anywhere?
3 Answers
Hey I was wondering this same thing.. After some research there are some docker containers that you can look at https://hub.docker.com/_/ros/ . If you want a virtual machine im actually working on a vagrant file that does exactly this as we speak. https://github.com/joepuzzo/vagrant-turtlebot You could fork that and tweak it to your needs.
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$\begingroup$ glad to see a reply, i have no knowledge of using docker or vagrant. is it some sort of running scripts to automate the process? but then it will download package from internet and install right? i am looking for a prebuild machine so that i can download and use it . ubuntu is not my cup of tea, every now and then some problem happens making it unusable, so instead of reinstalling one by one from scratch i want a prebuild machine so i can just use it by opening through virtual box $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 18, 2018 at 21:10
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$\begingroup$ Totally get that! Yeah so if you want to go down the virtualbox route I would highly recommend you learn a little about vagrant for the exact reasons you described. So What is vagrant? Vagrant is an awesome tool that allows you to build virtual machines from a text file. Why is it so awesome? Because all you need is virtual box and vagrant, and you now have access to thousands of virtual machine definitions ( known as boxes ). The cool part is if you run into issues you can just set up your own box definition by tweaking the
Vagrant
file. $\endgroup$– PuzzoCommented Feb 18, 2018 at 21:21 -
$\begingroup$ At its core its really simple. Instead of installing ubuntu and following the step by step guide on ROS's website to install every dependency and stuff to get your machine up and running, you write all the steps in the
Vagrant
file, runvagrant up
from your terminal ( might differ for windows ) and your new virtual machine will show up in virtual-box. $\endgroup$– PuzzoCommented Feb 18, 2018 at 21:24 -
$\begingroup$ just installed vagrant after ur post i have to see how to use it.. btw can u tell whats in this app.vagrantup.com/bkinman/boxes/ubuntu1604_kinetic $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 18, 2018 at 21:36
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$\begingroup$ So its published on vagrants hub but i cant seem to find his vagrantfile. In vagrant you can create and publish a "box" from a vagrantfile. This is what this guy "bkinman" did here.. it looks like he did not include description unfortunately. Typically you pull from well known boxes such as app.vagrantup.com/ubuntu/boxes/trusty64 . And build your own.. i would recommend you build your own from scratch because you have more control. That being said i totally get the frustration of this.. it should be more simple than this to get ROS up and running. $\endgroup$– PuzzoCommented Feb 18, 2018 at 21:43
This is the only Vagrant box I've found for kinetic
:
https://app.vagrantup.com/pstizzy/boxes/ubuntu-xenial64-ros-kinetic-desktop-full
There is an online resource I have come across that is geared towards learning. It is a paid subscription and I have not personally used the online environment. I have used some of their tutorials and it seems helpful.