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Herb Kuta edited this page Jun 6, 2019 · 25 revisions

OpenEmbedded Build Instructions

Revision: 5 Published: 2019-06-06

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
#

# Uncomment this if you configured with ros2-crystal.mcf:
# DISTRO = "ros2"
# Uncomment this if you configured with webos-crystal.mcf:
# DISTRO = "webos"

# 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}"
# 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

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

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

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

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

    source ros_setup.sh

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

    # Select a configuration based on the value of DISTRO in conf/local.conf:
# 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 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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