Appendix A. Installation Instructions
There are two supported ways to install all software required for the code examples and exercises in this book. You can either use
- your PC or laptop
- or a cloud VM as a remote desktop.
In both cases, we use Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) as the operating system of choice. We use the Robot Operating System version ROS 2 Jazzy Jalisco or jazzy for short. Both Ubuntu 24.04 and ROS Jazzy are LTS releases with support until May 2029.[1] The instructions and code in the book should also work - albeit perhaps with minor modifications - with later releases of Ubuntu and ROS, e.g. Iron Irwini (released in May 2023). I recommend using the versions tested with this book, especially when just starting with ROS.
ROS 2 also runs on other Linux distributions, Windows, and macOS. Official binary distribution packages are available for Ubuntu 24.04, Windows 10, and RHEL 9. To avoid setup hassles and issues with the (subtle) differences among the supported platforms, I strongly recommend to use one of the following options:
- Option 1: Install Ubuntu 24.04 and ROS Jazzy on a local machine
- Option 2: Install Ubuntu 24.04 and ROS Jazzy on a cloud VM
The first option is preferable, especially if you want to work with real robots. However, it requires installing a new or additional OS on your PC or laptop, unless you are already running Ubuntu 24.04 on it. The second option only requires to installation of a Chromium-based browser, e.g. Chrome, on your personal device.