These instructions are based on the ROS2 official installation webpage:

https://index.ros.org/doc/ros2/Installation/Dashing/Linux-Development-Setup/

There are small differences. This may change with future ROS2 updates.

• Add ROS2 apt repository (lsb_release -cs sets the repository to “sid” which is a mistake, it must be forced to “buster”)

sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl gnupg2 lsb-release
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64,arm64] http://packages.ros.org/ros2/ubuntu buster main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2-latest.list'

• Install development tools and ROS tools:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y \
build-essential \
cmake \
git \
python3-colcon-common-extensions \
python3-pip \
python-rosdep \
python3-vcstool \
wget
# install some pip packages needed for testing
python3 -m pip install -U \
argcomplete \
flake8 \
flake8-blind-except \
flake8-builtins \
flake8-class-newline \
flake8-comprehensions \
flake8-deprecated \
flake8-docstrings \
flake8-import-order \
flake8-quotes \
pytest-repeat \
pytest-rerunfailures \
pytest \
pytest-cov \
pytest-runner \
setuptools
# install Fast-RTPS dependencies
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends -y \
libasio-dev \
libtinyxml2-dev
# install CycloneDDS dependencies
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends -y \
libcunit1-dev

• Create workspace and clone repos:

mkdir -p ~/ros2_dashing/src
cd ~/ros2_dashing
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros2/ros2/dashing/ros2.repos
vcs import src < ros2.repos

• Install dependencies using rosdep

sudo rosdep init
rosdep update
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro dashing -y --skip-keys "console_bridge fastcdr fastrtps libopensplice67 libopensplice69 rti-connext-dds-5.3.1 urdfdom_headers"

• Configure the system to use gcc and g++ version 8 instead of version 9:

sudo apt-get install gcc-8 g++-8
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-8 80 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-8
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-9 60 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-9

• Build the code in the workspace

cd ~/ros2_dashing/
colcon build --symlink-install

• Try some examples
• In one terminal:

. ~/ros2_dashing/install/local_setup.bash
ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp talker

• In another terminal:

. ~/ros2_dashing/install/local_setup.bash
ros2 run demo_nodes_py listener