Why are ROS commands not recognised when I open a new terminal?

Question

I know I'm a complete noob and it will be something stupid, but I've been going through the tutorials trying to get ROS installed and set up and I've got to ROS\Tutorials\UnderstandingNodes where one of the steps says run the roscore command (which runs until you stop it right?) and run something else in a new terminal while it's running. Everytime I open a new terminal it won't recognise any ROS commands. rosnode: command not found roscd: command not found etc... I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 and I think I've tried to install both ROS Groovy and Hydro. Not going to lie, I have absolutely zero idea what I'm doing here... Cheers.

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Originally posted by fjleishman on ROS Answers with karma: 1 on 2013-10-16

Post score: 0

Answer 1

It sounds like setup.bash hasn't been sourced in the new terminal window. When you open a new window try executing this command:

source /opt/ros/hydro/setup.bash

I personally include that in my .bashrc file, which will do that automatically every time you open a new terminal, however some people don't like that approach.

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Originally posted by skiesel with karma: 549 on 2013-10-16

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 3

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Original comments

Comment by fjleishman on 2013-10-16:
Perfect, Thank you so much! I think I'll go and add it to my .bashrc file to save me from forgetting every time.

Answer 2

The Hydro installation instructions appear to be missing the Environment Setup step. I believe you should be able to follow the Groovy Environment Setup instructions, and replace every instance of groovy with hydro.

Note: I haven't yet installed Hydro myself, so I can't guarantee this will work.

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Originally posted by Dan Lazewatsky with karma: 9115 on 2013-10-16

This answer was NOT ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 1

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Original comments

Comment by Martin Günther on 2013-10-17:
The Environment Setup instructions were probably ommitted by mistake. I've added them back. (I have Hydro installed, so I could check that they work).