• Set a xstow environment Using xstow for local installations
• Download configure and compile arcoslab version of orocos-kdl:

cd ~/local/src
git clone https://gitlab.com/arcoslab/orocos-kdl.git
cd orocos-kdl
make install-python

It is also possible to install orocos-kdl from master and have access to their latest improvements. If you already folloed the instructions above, you don't have to follow these ones.

cd ~/local/src/
git clone https://github.com/orocos/orocos_kinematics_dynamics.git
cd orocos_kinematics_dynamics/orocos_kdl
mkdir build
cd build
ccmake ..

This will configure the Cmake environment to build orocos-kdl. Select ~/local/DIR/orocos_kdl/ as the installation directory. And make sure that the correct eigen3 dir is found. To configure press 'c', and to generate presss 'g'.

Once generated:

make -j8
make install
cd ~/local/DIR/
xstow orocos_kdl

Now we need to install the python bidings.

cd ~/local/src/orocos_kinematics_dynamics/python_orocos_kdl/
mkdir build
cd build
ccmake ..

Select ~/local/DIR/py_kdl as the installation directory. You should make sure that orocos is using the correct python interpreter, if the default of your system is Python3, then make sure that it is looking for Python3. It may be required to toggle advanced options for that (press 't'). Generate the make files

make
make install
cd ~/local/DIR/
xstow py_kdl

Now, for a very Quick test, open a python interpreter and import PyKDL, if you should not receive error messages.

ipython
import PyKDL