Installing ROS 2 via RPM Packages

RPM packages for ROS 2 Galactic Geochelone are currently available for RHEL 8. The target platforms are defined in REP 2000

Resources

Set locale

Make sure you have a locale which supports UTF-8. If you are in a minimal environment (such as a docker container), the locale may be something minimal like C. We test with the following settings. However, it should be fine if you’re using a different UTF-8 supported locale.

locale  # check for UTF-8

sudo dnf install langpacks-en glibc-langpack-en
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

locale  # verify settings

Setup Sources

You will need to enable the EPEL repositories and the PowerTools repository:

sudo dnf install 'dnf-command(config-manager)' epel-release -y
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled powertools

Next, download the ROS 2 .repo file:

sudo dnf install curl
sudo curl --output /etc/yum.repos.d/ros2.repo http://packages.ros.org/ros2/rhel/ros2.repo

Then, update your metadata cache. DNF may prompt you to verify the GPG key, which should match the location https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.asc.

sudo dnf makecache

Install ROS 2 packages

Desktop Install (Recommended): ROS, RViz, demos, tutorials.

sudo dnf install ros-galactic-desktop

ROS-Base Install (Bare Bones): Communication libraries, message packages, command line tools. No GUI tools.

sudo dnf install ros-galactic-ros-base

Environment setup

Sourcing the setup script

Set up your environment by sourcing the following file.

source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash

Try some examples

If you installed ros-galactic-desktop above you can try some examples.

In one terminal, source the setup file and then run a C++ talker:

source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash
ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp talker

In another terminal source the setup file and then run a Python listener:

source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash
ros2 run demo_nodes_py listener

You should see the talker saying that it’s Publishing messages and the listener saying I heard those messages. This verifies both the C++ and Python APIs are working properly. Hooray!

Next steps after installing

Continue with the tutorials and demos to configure your environment, create your own workspace and packages, and learn ROS 2 core concepts.

Additional RMW implementations (optional)

The default middleware that ROS 2 uses is Cyclone DDS, but the middleware (RMW) can be replaced at runtime. See the guide on how to work with multiple RMWs.

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting techniques can be found here.

Uninstall

If you need to uninstall ROS 2 or switch to a source-based install once you have already installed from binaries, run the following command:

sudo dnf remove ros-galactic-*