In this lesson you will prepare the development environment needed to work with ROS.

Before we start writing nodes, launching robots, or working with ROS tools, we need a stable setup where ROS can run correctly.

For this course we will use:

• Ubuntu 20.04
• ROS Noetic
• Visual Studio Code

There are two main ways to run ROS on your computer:

• installing Ubuntu directly on your machine
• using a virtual machine

In this course we will use a Virtual Machine with VirtualBox.

Why?

Because it is the easiest way to get started without modifying your main operating system.

If you already use Linux, you can install ROS directly.
But if you are using Windows or Mac, the virtual machine approach is the simplest solution.

In this lesson we will complete three steps:

1. Install Ubuntu 20.04 using VirtualBox
2. Install ROS Noetic
3. Configure Visual Studio Code for ROS development

Once this setup is complete, you will have a full environment ready to start building ROS applications.

2. Setup Guide — Step-by-Step Overview

In this lesson you will follow three videos.

Each video covers one important step of the setup process.

You do not need to memorize everything.

Just follow the videos step by step and make sure your environment works at the end.

Step 1 — Install Ubuntu 20.04 on VirtualBox

The first step is installing the operating system where ROS will run.

ROS Noetic is designed to work with Ubuntu 20.04, so we will install that version.

In the first video you will learn how to:

• download VirtualBox
• download the Ubuntu 20.04 ISO
• create a virtual machine
• allocate memory and disk space
• install Ubuntu inside VirtualBox

Once this step is complete, you will have a working Ubuntu environment inside your computer.

Think of this virtual machine as your ROS laboratory.

You will use it for:

• running ROS
• writing ROS code
• testing your nodes
• running simulations

Step 2 — Install ROS Noetic

In the second video we install ROS Noetic.

Remember from the previous lesson that ROS distributions are tied to specific operating system versions.

In our case:

• ROS Noetic
• Ubuntu 20.04

This is a standard and stable combination.

In the video you will follow the typical ROS installation procedure:

• adding the ROS repository
• installing ROS Noetic
• initializing rosdep
• configuring the environment
• verifying the installation

At the end of this step you should be able to run basic ROS commands in the terminal.

This means ROS is successfully installed.

Step 3 — Configure Visual Studio Code for ROS

The third step is preparing the development environment.

You could write ROS code in any text editor, but using a proper development environment makes things much easier.

In this course we will use Visual Studio Code.

Visual Studio Code is lightweight, powerful, and widely used in robotics development.

In the video you will learn how to:

• install Visual Studio Code
• install useful extensions for ROS development
• configure the editor for Python and C++ ROS nodes

Some of the extensions we typically install include:

• Python support
• C/C++ support
• ROS development tools
• syntax highlighting
• code navigation tools

This will give you:

• better code readability
• auto-completion
• easier debugging
• better navigation through ROS packages

Once this step is complete, your development environment will be ready.

3. Key Takeaways

After this lesson you should have a complete ROS development environment ready.

You should now have:

• a VirtualBox virtual machine
• Ubuntu 20.04 installed
• ROS Noetic installed
• Visual Studio Code configured for ROS

This environment will allow you to:

• create ROS packages
• write ROS nodes
• run ROS commands
• launch ROS applications

From the next lessons onward, we will start using this environment to explore ROS tools and build our first ROS nodes.