Installing ROS 2 Humble on Ubuntu 22.04¶

0. Verify Ubuntu Version¶

ROS 2 Humble officially supports Ubuntu 22.04.

Open a terminal and run:

lsb_release -a

You should see:

Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Release:        22.04

If not, stop and fix your Ubuntu installation before continuing.

1. Update System Packages¶

Always start with a clean, updated system.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y curl software-properties-common

Reboot if the system asks you to.

2. Enable Ubuntu Universe Repository¶

ROS 2 packages are hosted in the universe repository.

sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt update

3. Add the ROS 2 GPG Key¶

This step allows Ubuntu to trust ROS 2 packages.

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.key | \
sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg

4. Add the ROS 2 Repository¶

This tells Ubuntu where to download ROS 2 from.

echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/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

Update package lists again:

sudo apt update

5. Install ROS 2 Humble¶

Install the desktop version (includes RViz, demos, and tools).

sudo apt install -y ros-humble-desktop

This works on x86_64 (Intel/AMD) and ARM64 (Apple Silicon).

6. Install Development Tools¶

These tools are required for building ROS 2 packages in later labs.

sudo apt install ros-dev-tools

7. Initialize rosdep (Required)¶

rosdep installs system dependencies for ROS packages.

sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

If rosdep init says it already exists, that is OK.

8. Source ROS 2¶

You must source ROS every time you open a terminal.

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash

Replace .bash with your shell extension if you’re not using bash. You can find out which shell you are using by running the command echo $0. That command shows the shell that was used to start the current session. Some examples are: setup.bash, setup.sh, setup.zsh.

Source ROS 2 Automatically (Optional)¶

echo "source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

One important caution

If you later install multiple ROS versions, auto-sourcing one distro can cause conflicts.

In that case, you might:

Comment it out in .bashrc, or

Source the one you want manually

For a single-distro setup, this is perfectly fine.

9. Verify ROS 2 Installation¶

Check that ROS 2 is installed:¶

ros2 --help

You should see output indicating ROS 2 is installed.

Run a Talker/Listener Test:¶

Open Terminal 1:

ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp talker

Open Terminal 2:

ros2 run demo_nodes_py listener

If messages appear in the listener, ROS 2 is working correctly.

To stop the running nodes press Ctrl + c

10. Common VMware-Specific Notes¶

Performance Tips¶

Allocate at least:
2 GB RAM (4+ GB recommended)
2 CPU cores (2+ recommended)
Enable 3D acceleration in VMware settings

11. Known Issues & Fixes¶

Problem: `ros2: command not found`¶

Fix:

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash

Problem: Slow VM¶