Installing ROS 1 Noetic on Ubuntu

Downloading Debian packages to set up ROS on your Linux machine

Esther Weon 5 min read
Published May 12, 2022

This tutorial will focus on installing Noetic Ninjemys, the latest LTS release for ROS 1, on Ubuntu Focal.

Though it’s possible to install ROS 1 from source, the easiest way to get ROS running on your Ubuntu machine is to install its corresponding Debian packages using apt, a command line utility for installing and managing packages on Linux distributions.

In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through installing the Debian packages for ROS 1 Noetic Ninjemys on Ubuntu Focal (20.04.4 LTS). If you are on Ubuntu Jammy (22.04 LTS), the latest LTS release, you can opt for a ROS 2 installation instead – both Rolling Ridley and Humble Hawksbill can run on Ubuntu Jammy.

Set up a UTF-8 system locale

Before installing anything, you’ll need to make sure your system locale supports UTF-8. Locale issues can cause unexpected problems further down the line, when using various ROS tools and libraries.

Run $ locale in a terminal window to view your currently installed locale – if UTF-8 appears in the listed output, you’re all set!

Otherwise, you'll need to set up your locale in one of two ways – choose a locale on your system or generate a new one.

Show more info.

Set up your source repos

Ubuntu programs are stored in repositories that make installing new software easy and secure. Ubuntu’s four main repositories are as follows:

Main (Canonical-supported open-source software)
Universe (community-maintained open source software)
Restricted (proprietary device drivers)
Multiverse (proprietary software)

For the purposes of installing ROS, we need to enable the Ubuntu Universe, Restricted, and Multiverse repositories:

$ sudo apt install software-properties-common
$ sudo add-apt-repository universe
$ sudo add-apt-repository restricted
$ sudo add-apt-repository multiverse

Now you can set up your sources to accept software from packages.ros.org and add the PGP key provided by ROS:

$ sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
$ curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.asc | sudo apt-key add -

Install ROS 1 packages

Install your ROS 1 Noetic desktop setup with the following commands:

$ sudo apt update # update your apt repo caches
$ sudo apt install ros-noetic-desktop-full

This will install a few different components like the core ROS libraries, developer tools like RViz, and a variety of 2D/3D simulators and perception packages.

To install an additional ROS package separately, you can follow the pattern of $ sudo apt install ros-noetic-PACKAGE:

$ apt search ros-noetic # see available packages
$ sudo apt install ros-noetic-slam-gmapping

Show more info.

Install additional dependencies

To create and manage your own ROS workspaces, you'll need to install a few extra dependencies:

rosdep – Installs system dependencies for source you want to compile and runs some core ROS components
rosinstall – Downloads source trees for ROS packages
rosinstall-generator – Generates rosinstall files with information about repositories containing ROS packages
wstool – Maintains a workspace of projects from multiple version control systems
build-essential – Links to packages crucial to compiling software

$ sudo apt install python3-rosdep python3-rosinstall python3-rosinstall-generator python3-wstool build-essential
$ sudo rosdep init # initializes rosdep
$ rosdep update

Source your setup file

Typically, you would need to source your setup file every time you open a terminal to use ROS:

$ source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash

To save yourself the time, you can automatically trigger this step every time you launch a new shell. Run the following commands if you’re using a bash shell:

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

Run the following commands if you’re using a zsh shell:

echo "source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.zsh" >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

What’s next

Continue with the official ROS 1 tutorials.

To uninstall ROS 1, remove the repository from your system completely:

$ sudo apt-get remove ros-noetic

Visualize and analyze your data with Foxglove

Once you’ve gotten the lay of the land and started recording your robots’ data, you’ll need to start visualizing your data to understand what’s going on under the hood of your robots.

Your ROS .bag files can be imported directly into Foxglove Data Platform, so your whole team can collaborate on organizing and tagging your data:

Foxglove Studio

They can also be dragged-and-dropped into Foxglove Studio for instant rich visualizations. Load up your data to view camera images, display 3D markers, review log messages, and more:

Foxglove Data Platform