Hope these kinds of questions are allowed here. On this occasion I’m just looking for a straight answer.

For a university course I need to install ROS - software for doing robotics stuff. Specifically, I need ROS 1 - which is no longer being updated, as ROS 2 is now the focus. The installation instructions are here: https://wiki.ros.org/Installation/Ubuntu

The instructions from the course material say that only Ubuntu 18 would work, though the ROS wiki says Ubuntu 20.04 is the target. Either way, it doesn’t seem to be available for Ubuntu 22.04 and therefore Linux Mint 21, which is what I’m running.

The course instructions generally gives 3 options:

  1. Install ROS on a VirtualBox virtual machine
  2. Install on Windows using WSL
  3. Install on a real Ubuntu 18 system

Right now I’m going to use VirtualBox to get started, but I’d really prefer to run it natively and I’m worried about performance. Is there a simple way to download and run software intended for Ubuntu 20.04 on Linux Mint 21.3?

Edit: thank you all for the great suggestions! I got stuck on an unrelated problem (ran out of storage space) but I’m sure your suggestions will work once I fix that. Forgive me for not replying individually, you’re all awesome and I don’t have anything to add other than “thank you” :)

  • Para_lyzed
    6•11 months ago

    I don’t have much to comment on native installs that hasn’t already been said, but if you go with a VM, please don’t use VirtualBox. It’s a pile of hot garbage that pales in comparison to the already existing, kernel-level virtualization offered by KVM/QEMU. Use a package like virt-manager for KVM/QEMU based VMs and your experience and performance will be infinitely better. The Linux kernel has KVM built in for a reason, so take advantage of that.

    Otherwise, Distrobox is a great recommendation, as are many of the other install methods listed in these comments.

    • Max-P
      1•11 months ago

      For maximum performance you probably want to skip virt-manager, virt-viewer has a hardcoded FPS cap.

      If you use QEMU directly and use virtio-gpu paired with the sdl or gtk display, and OpenGL enabled, you can run Ubuntu at 4K144Hz no problem. The VM is near imperceptible, and it works out of the box, that’s not even touching the crazy VFIO stuff.

      • Para_lyzed
        2•11 months ago

        Perhaps I was a bit vague with the word “performance”, but given that this user only seems to be interested in running ROS, there is absolutely no reason they need anything above the FPS cap (hence my recommendation of virt-manager, as it is quite user friendly). The “performance” aspect of it boils down to CPU utilization and efficiency more than anything.