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ros2_install.sh is the primary installation script for the MobileRobot course. It fully automates ROS2 Humble setup on Ubuntu 22.04 — handling locale configuration, APT source registration, package installation, colcon workspace creation, rosdep initialization, and shell environment configuration — so students can go from a fresh Ubuntu install to a working ROS2 environment in a single command.
If you have another ROS distro already installed, comment out its source /opt/ros/<OTHER_DISTRO>/setup.bash line in your ~/.bashrc before running this script. Running two ROS environments simultaneously causes conflicts that are difficult to debug.

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Script Location

The script lives at Scripts/ros2_install.sh in the MobileRobot repository.

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Running the Script

Navigate to the directory where you downloaded the script, make it executable, and run it: 
sudo chmod +x ros2_install.sh
./ros2_install.sh
The script prints a confirmation prompt immediately after launch and then waits up to 10 seconds for you to press Enter (or CTRL+C to abort). Use that window to double-check the displayed configuration before the installation begins.

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Configurable Variables

Three variables near the top of the script control what gets installed and where the workspace is created. Edit them before running if you need different values:
VariableDefaultPurpose
name_ros_version'humble'ROS2 distribution name used in every package and path reference
ros2_pkg'desktop'Package variant to install — desktop includes GUI tools such as RViz; alternatives are desktop-full and ros-base
name_workspace'colcon_ws'Name of the colcon workspace directory created under $HOME

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Step-by-Step Execution Flow

1

Distro conflict warning

The script immediately prints a warning reminding you to comment out any existing ROS distro source lines in ~/.bashrc, then pauses for you to press Enter.
2

Display configuration and confirm

The resolved values of name_ros_version, ros2_pkg, and name_workspace are printed so you can verify them. The script then waits up to 10 seconds — press Enter to continue or CTRL+C to cancel.
3

Set locale

Ensures the system locale is correctly configured for ROS2:
sudo apt update && sudo apt install locales
sudo locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8
sudo update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
4

Set up APT sources

Installs prerequisite tools, downloads the official ROS2 GPG signing key, and registers the ROS2 APT repository:
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* && sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y curl gnupg2 lsb-release
sudo curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.key \
    -o /usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) \
    signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg] \
    http://packages.ros.org/ros2/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) main" \
    | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2.list > /dev/null'
sudo apt update
5

Install ROS2 Humble Desktop

Installs the full desktop variant of ROS2 Humble (includes RViz, rqt, and all core libraries):
sudo apt install -y ros-humble-desktop
6

Install Python tooling

Sources the freshly installed ROS2 environment and installs the Python utilities needed for building and managing packages:
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.sh
sudo apt install -y python3-argcomplete \
    python3-colcon-common-extensions \
    python3-vcstool \
    python3-rosdep2
7

Create the colcon workspace

Creates the colcon_ws workspace directory (or whichever name you set in name_workspace) and runs an initial build to verify the setup:
mkdir -p $HOME/colcon_ws/src
cd $HOME/colcon_ws
colcon build --symlink-install
8

Update rosdep

Fetches the latest rosdep package index so dependency resolution works correctly:
rosdep update
9

Configure ~/.bashrc

Appends convenience aliases, ROS2 source lines, workspace overlay, colcon shell completion, and the ROS_DOMAIN_ID export to ~/.bashrc — see the full block below.

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~/.bashrc Additions

After the installation completes, the script appends the following lines to your ~/.bashrc: 
alias nb='nano ~/.bashrc'
alias sb='source ~/.bashrc'

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
source ~/colcon_ws/install/setup.bash
source /usr/share/colcon_argcomplete/hook/colcon-argcomplete.bash

export ROS_DOMAIN_ID=0
LinePurpose
alias nbOpens ~/.bashrc in nano for quick editing
alias sbRe-sources ~/.bashrc in the current shell without restarting the terminal
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bashPuts all ROS2 Humble executables and libraries on your PATH / PYTHONPATH
source ~/colcon_ws/install/setup.bashOverlays your local workspace packages on top of the ROS2 install
source /usr/share/colcon_argcomplete/hook/colcon-argcomplete.bashEnables TAB completion for colcon commands
export ROS_DOMAIN_ID=0Scopes DDS discovery to domain 0; change this if running multiple robots on the same network
ROS_DOMAIN_ID=0 is the default and works for single-machine development. If you are running multiple robots or developers on the same LAN, assign each machine a unique domain ID (0–101) to prevent cross-talk between unrelated nodes.

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