Install Ubuntu 11.10

Install ROS Electric

Setup your sources.list

Setup your computer to accept software from ROS.org:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu oneiric main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

Set up your keys

wget http://packages.ros.org/ros.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -

Installation

Make sure you have re-indexed the ROS.org server:

sudo apt-get update

Desktop-Full Install:

sudo apt-get install ros-electric-*

Environment setup

It's convenient if the ROS environment variables are automatically added to your bash session every time a new shell is launched:

echo "source /opt/ros/electric/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
.~/.bashrc

In order to use Lego NXT Before you need to set your udev rules:

sudo groupadd lego
sudo usermod -a -G lego <username>
echo -e "BUS==\"usb\", ATTRS{idVendor}==\"0694\", GROUP=\"lego\", MODE=\"0660\"\nBUS==\"usb\", ATTRS{idVendor}==\"1962\", GROUP=\"lego\", MODE=\"0660\"" > /tmp/70-lego.rules && sudo mv /tmp/70-lego.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/70-lego.rules
sudo restart udev

Now log out and log back in to finish. A more detailed version of these instructions are at NXT-Python page

Set up to add external packeages

It's a good practice to place all the external ROS packages into a specific folder. Create the ROS_external directory:

cd
mkdir ROS_external

and make a symbolic link to the ROS_external directory in ROS stack folder

roscd navigation
cd ..
sudo ln -s ~/ROS_external external

Set up to add your own packeages

As before, it's suitable to create a folder to store your personal projects. Create the projects directory:

cd
mkdir projects

and then make a symbolic link also to the projects directory in ROS stack folder

roscd navigation
cd ..
sudo ln -s ~/projects unipd-ros-pkg

Install programming tools

Install RabbitVCS SVN/GIT frontend

This tool allows to manage code versioning in a graphical way.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rabbitvcs/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rabbitvcs-nautilus3
killall nautilus

Install Eclipse

The Eclipse package we're going to install is an IDE for C/C++ developers with Mylyn integration.

Download the package from this link or check for the latest version (actually is Indigo) at http://www.eclipse.org/downloads.

Extract the file you get in a suitable folder, we use /opt/eclipse/indigo.

Create a symbolic link to main Eclipse program to run it from your shell

cd /usr/bin
sudo ln -s /opt/eclipse/indigo/eclipse indigo

Install MeshLab

MeshLab is an open source, portable, and extensible system for the processing and editing of unstructured 3D triangular meshes.

sudo apt-get install meshlab