Pepper-Workspace

based on althack/ros2-vscode-template GitHub

Usage

Repository for a ROS2(foxy) workspace with vscode settings. Using remote container, once you open the workspace in vscode, it will automatically build the workspace and install the vscode extensions. Feel free to modify the Dockerfiles and other stuffs to your needs.

To build the container use VSCode remote-container extensions as follows:

1. CTRL + SHIFT + P to open the command list
2. Type in the textbox open folder in container and select the folder where you cloned the repo.
3. In the prompted menu, select the container that you want to build. Ther are options for NVIDIA and Intel GPUs support (read preprequisites in the section below)

Prerequisites

To use the an NVIDIA GPU, you need to install the NVIDIA Container Toolkit and setup a proper runtime. More info about it in the NVIDIA's offical documentation.

If you want to use Intel GPU no prerequisite should be needed. As far as I know, this should be true for AMD graphics card either.

How to use

The container is splitted in two workspaces. The one that you "can see" is made by every files that are in the repo's folder. This is possible because the local workspace is mounted in the container automatically by VSCode. The second workspace (ROS2 workspace inside the colcon_ws folder) lives inside the container, and can be explored as a normal file system using terminal.

The file system If you want explore container's file system with VSCode just write in the terminal the command code /. This will open a new VSCode window where the root of the filesystem is mounted.

To prevent accidental damage, instead of the root (/) foolder just type the path of the folder that you want to inspect. You can then navigate to the desired folder using the terminal and then use code . to get the same behavior.

Fullpath of the folder can also be given to the code command if you want to open desired folder from everywhere. An alias for this could be set in the /.devcontainer/config/.aliases.sh file.

the setup.sh file

This file is used to update ros repositories, install missing depencencies and makes symbolic links from the local workspace/src folder to the home folder. With this trick, you can modify the ROS2 workspace locally and build packages as if your files lives inside the container.

the build.sh file

This file is used to build the workspace. Remember that this should be the only way to build your workspace, otherwise colcon will create install, build, and log folders in the folder where is called. If you call colcon build accidentally, remember to manually remove those directories.

building pipepline

Recap for the pipeline that users should follow to build the workspace is the following:

1. run ./setup.sh (or ros_setup alias) to update ros repositories, install missing depencencies and makes symbolic links.
2. run ./build.sh (or ros_build alias) to build the colcon workspace.

Use additional packages

If you want to use some other packages, the recommended way to install them are:

1. Check if your package exists on Debian's repositories with apt-cache search ros-foxy-\* | grep package_name.
2. If you can find it, then install it with sudo apt install package_name¹.
3. If you can't find it (or the apt-installed version doesn't work), you have to build it from source as described below.

Build from source

1. Go to github page of the desired package and check if a branch for foxy exists.
2. If so, copy the link from the clone button in the .devcontainer/config/ros2.repos file according to the vcs signature².
3. In the version field, write the name of the foxy branch that you find on GitHub.
4. Execute the building pipeline to clone the repository inside ~/colcon_ws/src³ and build it⁴.

Footnotes

1. If you want, you can add existing packages to your dockerfiles, so that everytime the container is built they are installed by default. This is also true for those packages that you listed in the ros2.repos file because the workspace is built a first time when the container is built. ↩

2. You can copy one of the other entries and edit the values properly. ↩

3. Which means that the downloaded package only affects the container, neither your host machine nor this repository or every package you wrote and you want to keep locally. ↩

4. Remember to source your workspace with the foxy alias or close and reopen a new shell. ↩