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Herb Kuta edited this page Jun 20, 2019 · 25 revisions

OpenEmbedded Build Instructions

Revision: 7 Published: 2019-06-25

These instructions are for building ROS 2 crystal using OpenEmbedded morty on Ubuntu bionic.

Although recipes for dashing appear in meta-ros, it requires Python 3.6, which is not provided by morty. The migration to OpenEmbedded thud is expected to be completed by the end of 2019-06. When dashing builds using it, conf/ros2-dashing.mcf and conf/webos-dashing.mcf will be added and these instructions updated.

Additional information on meta-ros can be found in Superflore OE Recipe Generation Scheme.

Build Environment Setup

  • Setup bitbake and OE-Core using a separate disk for the build artifacts (~100GB required).

    # Prerequisites
sudo apt-get install gawk wget git-core diffstat unzip texinfo gcc-multilib \
        build-essential chrpath socat cpio python python3-pip python3-pexpect \
        xz-utils debianutils iputils-ping \
        g++-multilib locales lsb-release python3-distutils time
sudo locale-gen en_US.utf8

# The branch for OpenEmbedded "thud" is not yet available. In the meantime, use a draft of the branch for "morty".
git clone -b morty-draft [email protected]:ros/meta-ros
mkdir conf
cp meta-ros/files/*.mcf conf/.

# Clone the OpenEmbedded metadata layers. Select a configuration based on the DISTRO you wish to build:
# cfg=ros2-crystal.mcf
# cfg=webos-crystal.mcf
meta-ros/scripts/mcf -f conf/$cfg

# oe-init-build-env defaults to using "./build" as the build directory. Bitbake expects to find the "conf" subdirectory under
# the build directory, so create a symlink there to where we've created it.
mkdir build
ln -snf ../conf build/.

# By default, OpenEmbedded "morty" expects bitbake to be in a subdirectory of where oe-init-build-env resides. Fool it.
ln -snf ../bitbake openembedded-core/.

# Set up the shell environment for this build and create a conf/local.conf .
source openembedded-core/oe-init-build-env

# The current directory is now the build directory; return to the original.
cd -

# Create a common artifacts directory on the separate disk. The edits to conf/local.conf done below will set TMPDIR to be a
# subdirectory of it.
mkdir -p /absolute/path/to/directory/on/separate/disk

  • Add this to the bottom of conf/local.conf:

    #
# Local additions
#
# NB. DISTRO is not set in this file; instead, it is set in conf/bblayer.conf to the Distribution setting in *.mcf .
#

# Uncomment one:
# MACHINE = "qemux86"
# MACHINE = "raspberrypi3"

ROS_COMMON_ARTIFACTS = "/absolute/path/to/directory/on/separate/disk"

DL_DIR = "${ROS_COMMON_ARTIFACTS}/downloads"
SSTATE_DIR = "${ROS_COMMON_ARTIFACTS}/sstate-cache"
TMPDIR = "${ROS_COMMON_ARTIFACTS}/BUILD-${DISTRO}-${ROS_DISTRO}"
# Don't add the libc variant suffix to TMPDIR.
TCLIBCAPPEND := ""

# As recommended by https://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/2.6.2/mega-manual/mega-manual.html#var-BB_NUMBER_THREADS
# and https://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/2.6.2/mega-manual/mega-manual.html#var-PARALLEL_MAKE:
BB_NUMBER_THREADS = "${@min(int(bb.utils.cpu_count()), 20)}"
PARALLEL_MAKE = "-j ${BB_NUMBER_THREADS}"

# Special setting for "pcl" -- see meta-ros/recipes-extended/pcl/pcl_1.8.1.bb
PARALLEL_MAKE_pn-pcl = "-j <ROUND(<RAM-in-GB>/5)>"

Building Images

DISTRO = ros2 Images

core-image-ros-roscore

This image contains just the ROS "core".

source openembedded-core/oe-init-build-env
cd -
bitbake core-image-ros-roscore

To include additional ROS packages in this image, append them to the IMAGE_INSTALL variable in conf/local.conf:

IMAGE_INSTALL_append_pn-core-image-ros-roscore = " <PKG1> <PKG2> ..."

Note that the leading space after the opening double-quote is mandatory. See Customizing Images Using local.conf for more information.

core-image-ros-world

By default, this image contains all of the "non-optional" ROS packages. In the future, you will be able to include "optional" ones by setting DISTRO_FEATURES in conf/local.conf.

source openembedded-core/oe-init-build-env
cd -
bitbake core-image-ros-world

DISTRO = webos Images

webos-image-ros-roscore

This webOS OSE image contains just the ROS "core".

source openembedded-core/oe-init-build-env
cd -
bitbake webos-image-ros-roscore

To include additional ROS packages in this image, append them to the IMAGE_INSTALL variable in conf/local.conf:

IMAGE_INSTALL_append_pn-webos-image-ros-roscore = " <PKG1> <PKG2> ..."

Note that the leading space after the opening double-quote is mandatory. See Customizing Images Using local.conf for more information.

webos-image-ros-world

By default, this webOS OSE image contains all of the "non-optional" ROS packages. In the future, you will be able to include "optional" ones by setting DISTRO_FEATURES in conf/local.conf.

source openembedded-core/oe-init-build-env
cd -
bitbake webos-image-ros-roscore

Usage Notes

  • The images are placed in TMPDIR/deploy/images/MACHINE. We've found balenaEtcher to be an excellent tool for flashing them to SD cards.

  • These images default to being non-production: the root account has no password.

  • When using the core-image-ros-* images on a raspberrypi3, the login prompt appears only on the HDMI display, not on the serial port. The opposite is true when using webos-image-ros-* images.

  • When using the webos-image-ros-* images, press the Windows key to bring up the webOS OSE menu. Navigate to the network settings page to discover the IP address assigned by DHCP to the Ethernet connection, and its MAC address. Once you know the MAC address of a connection, you can use ip neigh from another Linux machine to discover it's IP address.

  • In order to run ROS commands, you must set up a ROS workspace by issuing:

    source ros_setup.sh

    When using the core-image-ros-* images, you must also manually start up networking:

    /etc/init.d/networking start

  • The *.mcf files do not pin the commit of meta-ros; to update it to its current head, issue:

    # Select the configuration you are building:
# cfg=ros2-crystal.mcf
# cfg=webos-crystal.mcf
meta-ros/scripts/mcf -f conf/$cfg

# If there happens to be a new version of $cfg in meta-ros, update conf/$cfg and rerun:
diff meta-ros/files/$cfg conf/. || {
  cp meta-ros/files/$cfg conf/.
  meta-ros/scripts/mcf -f conf/$cfg
  # Update from revision 4 instructions:
  [ -d openembedded-core/bitbake ] && { rm -rf openembedded-core/bitbake; ln -snf ../bitbake openembedded-core/.; }
}

Change Log

Revision 7

  • Drop setting DISTRO in conf/local.conf. It's now set in conf/bblayser.conf to the Distribution setting in *.mcf.
  • Add instructions on how to include additions ROS packages to the *-ros-core images.
  • Add more usage notes.

Revision 6

  • Problems have been observed when TMPDIR is shared between ROS_DISTRO-s => include -${ROS-DISTRO} in its value.
  • Fix typo.

Revision 5

  • Update the plans for dashing support.
  • Simpify and clarify the build setup instructions. Also make them more robust.
  • Add a note on to how update meta-ros.
  • Fix typos.

Revision 4

  • Revise for the inclusion of mcf in meta-ros.
  • Add support for using webOS OSE as the OpenEmbedded DISTRO.

Revision 3

  • Add a step to install the prerequisites.
  • Add instructions to build for Raspberry Pi.
  • Fix typo.

Revision 2

  • Drop setting SSTATE_MIRRORS because meta-ros adds global environment variables that invalidates even the shared state for native packages.
  • Specify a PARALLEL_MAKE_pn-pcl setting so that building pcl doesn't take nearly 3 hours.
  • Fix typos.

Revision 1

  • Initial publication.
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