Ros on windows

I am a firm believer in the crawl, walk, run method of learning.

That is one of the reasons I like the Dronebot workshop. In his general videos, Bill starts with an in-depth study of a particular process or component in isolation (crawl). In the DroneBot videos, he incorporates that process or component into a real robot(walk). These forums then encourage builders to take what they have learned and create something unique(run).

As of summer 2019, ROS on windows fits under the category of running without a net. (If I can mix a metaphor.)

Be sure to view any scraped knees as part of the learning, not as a failure.

🙂 As a kid, I raced BMX bikes. Mom worried constantly. Dad made sure I kept a laminated card with my name, phone number, and insurance information in my shoe.

I'm not sure how that approach would fly today.

Duce Robot, good luck. I have not had much trying to do this.  Here are two links to follow: https://ms-iot.github.io/ROSOnWindows/GettingStarted/Setup.html ,  http://wiki.ros.org/Installation/Windows .

Out of curiosity, why Windows?

I recently changed one of my Windows machines to dual-boot with Ubuntu 18.04, which is a good environment for testing ROS.  It went very smoothly, all you need is enough free space on your hard drive so that you can shrink your Windows partition and leave space for Ubuntu.

Just a thought!

?

Bill

Posted by: @dronebot-workshop

Out of curiosity, why Windows?

I converted over to Linux only to discover that it can't do what I need it to do.

My first problem with Linux is that it can't run my C# IDE.   That alone was enough to turn me off to Linux.  The second problem I discovered is that Linux won't run Fusion 360 either.   So Linux is useless for two of my most favorite applications. 

I was going to convert over to Linux and toss Windows in the trash and never look back.  But unfortunately Linux won't run my favorite applications, nor does it appear to have equivalent software replacements to offer.  Some people have suggested other options, but none of the options they have offered compare with my C# IDE or Fusion 360.   So, for me personally, Linux has been a huge disappointment.

@robo-pi

I wasn't suggesting CONVERTING to Linux, I was suggesting installing it as a dual-boot machine. That way you get both Windows and Linux on the same box.

Posted by: @dronebot-workshop

I wasn't suggesting CONVERTING to Linux, I was suggesting installing it as a dual-boot machine. That way you get both Windows and Linux on the same box.

My machines already do that.   And I do use Linux for some things.   However, I'm writing my own robot control system in C# so I would like to have my IDE up and running at the same time I'm running ROS.  I wouldn't be able to do that with a dual boot system. I could only run one or the other, but not both at the same time.

I'm hoping that I can run ROS on a Raspberry Pi and then I can subscribe to it from the Windows machine using my C# program.   This way ROS will be running on Linux and C# will be running on Windows, but they will both be up at the same time.

I'm not even sure how ROS works yet.  I'm hoping to set up a Raspberry Pi to experiment with it.  I'm hoping that I don't need to actually install ROS on Windows.  I don't want to have to do that.

For me the jury is still out on whether or not ROS is even worth it for a hobby robotics project.   I can see where it can be a huge plus for industry, but I'm not convinced yet that it is all that great for a hobbyist.   I guess that can depend on what the hobbyist is doing and how they are organizing the architecture of their robots.   It may end up being absolutely necessary when we get to incorporating the Jetson Nano into the system.  So I haven't drawn any final conclusions just yet.  Only time will tell on that one.

Out of curiosity, why Windows?

From what I have seen, the desire to run ROS from the desktop users are most familiar is very common.  There are a million posts (OK, slight exaggeration) claiming ROS runs just fine on Windows. Installing another operating system and switching back and forth is kind of a pain in the butt.  So, why do it if you don't have to. 

An interesting evolution in the teaching of ROS at the undergraduate level has been to require students to either use a dedicated lab computer or install a specific version of Ubuntu on a dual boot partition on their laptops. Students, teaching assistants, and faculty found themselves wasting too much time supporting other install methods.

As for the Ubuntu version, I didn’t have any issues with 18.04 until I started experimenting with the more complicated stuff like vision and path planning. Things got a bit messy when I had to build packages locally.

Just another trade-off to figure out.

This is getting far more complicated than I had originally thought.  I thought we could just load ROS onto a Raspberry Pi and experiment with it from there?

Now we are being asked to not only install Linux on a laptop, but even a specific version of Ubuntu?   I'm not sure what version of Linux I have installed on my machines but it may not be Ubuntu.   In fact, I think I might have installed a version of Mint Lite?  I don't remember for sure.  I'll have to fire up a Linux machine and see exactly what it's running.

Also, on the Raspberry Pi I was thinking of installing "Raspbian Buster with desktop", or possibly "Raspbian Buster with desktop and recommended software".   I prefer to keep my OS as lean as possible.  I'm not sure what all comes with the "Raspbian Buster with desktop".  I do want to have Geany and a Web Browser, but I can always add those packages later. I don't know if I need, or want all the software that comes with the "Raspbian Buster with desktop and recommended software".   It would be nice if they had a page that explains exactly what comes with these different packages.  I guess it does come with the complete LibreOffice package and that might be nice, although I'm not sure  if I'll really need to use LibreOffice on the Pi.   So going with just the "Raspbian Buster with desktop" and adding Geany and a Web Browser later might be better for me.

I'm starting over from square one with my Raspberry Pi B+ V1.2.  I think it runs at 700Mhz and has 512Mb of ram (not sure of the exact specs).   I'll be using a 16GB system SD Card.  I'm also going headless and I'll be using remote desktop via WiFi to access control of the Pi.    I'm doing it this way so that I'll be able to later just plug this SD card into a Raspberry Pi A+ and it will then already be set up for remote desktop via WiFi.

I just use the Model B as the main prototyping board to get the A+ up and running with remote desktop. 

@Robo-Pi

I think you can run c# on linux and mac - the VStudio on my mac shows

Supported Operating Systems for Debugging

• Currently, the C# debugger officially supports the following operating systems:

  • X64 operating systems:
    • Windows 7 SP1 and newer
    • macOS 10.12 (Sierra) and newer
    • Linux: see .NET Core documentation for the list of supported distributions. Note that other Linux distributions will likely work as well as long as they include glibc and OpenSSL.
  • ARM operating systems:
    • Linux is supported as a remote debugging target

And fusion 360 runs in a browser.

But I'm not meaning to persuade you to grow a beard, wear sandals and mutter about hating ms and all that ? 

So there are four ways I know of to run ROS on your windows platform.

1. Is to do an actual windows install.  I have tried this but it is not straight forward because Windows commands are so different then Linux. Here are two links for how to do this:

https://ms-iot.github.io/ROSOnWindows/GettingStarted/Setup.html

http://wiki.ros.org/Installation/Windows

2. The second way that I am using with good success is to use the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).  It basicly installs Linux into your Windows 10 operating system.  I have not figured out how to access Windows programs from it through, such as Visual Studio, but it seems like it should be possible.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10

3. Use a vitrual maching like Oracle Virtual Box.  Then you can run linux and windows side-by-side.  Again I don't know how you would use windows applications in the linux environment.

https://www.virtualbox.org/

4. Do a dual boot of Linux and windows. If you have an SSD drive for your boot drive this is acceptable except you can't keep track of your windows applications like email while on the linux box. I'm not including a link because there are many good youtubes on how to do this.

If anybody does either 1 or 2 and has any success I would like to hear about it.

Good luck.

@twobits,  In another thread here you posted the following:

A desktop or laptop for using ROS visualization tools.

Are these "Visualization tools" different from ROS itself?    Or are they just part of the ROS package?  In other words, do you actually need to install ROS in order to use these visualization tools? 

Also, won't the visualization tools work on the Raspberry Pi?

@robo-pi

Yes, I have the visualization tools running on my Pi.  It's part of the install.  They're a little slower but still perfectly workable.  I'm sure the Pi 4 will be much better.