Dockerized setup for ROS 1

This dockerized environment provides:

• ROS 1 with Catkin-ready workspace
• GUI available via noVNC

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Run the docker compose setup

Run setup with:

docker compose up

The noVNC GUI is available at http://localhost:8080/vnc.html.

To wipe the docker environment:

docker compose down -v

To change the ROS distribution, change the ROS_DISTRO value in .env

To to freshly build the docker image change from:

image: ghcr.io/davidelanz/ros1_${ROS_DISTRO}_docker

to:

build:
    dockerfile: ./Dockerfile

and use:

docker compose up --build

Use the catkin workspace

The catkin workspace catkin_ws is in the catkin_ws docker compose container at /root/catkin_ws/.

Catkin workspace file structure (courtesy: Develop Paper)

To work with the container, connect to it with docker exec -it <container_name> bash and then use catkin as usual:

# Build workspace
catkin build

To spawn multiple processes, execute multiple commands via docker.

To add a new package, add the respective volume in the docker-compose.yml file:

volumes:
    - /path/to/<package_name>:/root/catkin_ws/src/<package_name>

To manage packages in the catkin workspace, check out catkin/Tutorials/CreatingPackage and catkin/Tutorials/using_a_workspace