ros-install-osx

• This commonly breaks depending on what gets pushed over brew and whether the corresponding packages update deprecated code. Efforts have been made to pick out working versions of specific packages, but nothing is guaranteed.

This repo aims to maintain a usable, scripted, up-to-date installation procedure for ROS, currently melodic. The intent is that the install script may be executed on a Catalina or newer machine and produce a working desktop_full installation, including RQT, rviz, and Gazebo.

This is the successor to the [popular gist on the same topic][1]. Also thanks to Boris Gromov for his helpful gist.

Current Status

Note: This should work as of Jan 22, 2021 on macOS Big Sur 11.1. Only ROS Noetic is supported.

Required software versions (installed via script):

• Boost: 1.73
• Opencv: 4.5
• Python: 3.8

Usage

The install script should just work for most users, although you may need to run it multiple times. Run these steps first to have a better chance of success:

1. Disable system integrity protection.

2. If on Catalina, set your terminal back to bash. This is very helpful for building software via brew, and roslaunch will not autocomplete using zsh.

   chsh -s /bin/bash

3. Attempting to clone this repo onto your machine should trigger the xcode command line tools to download.

   xcode-select --install
   git clone https://github.com/smnogar/ros-install-osx.git
   cd ros-install-osx

4. Install brew

   ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
   echo export PATH='/usr/local/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile
   source ~/.bash_profile
   brew doctor

5. Install xquartz

   brew cask install xquartz

6. Run: ./install

7. After it completes successfully, add the following to your bash_profile:

   cat bash_profile_recommendations.sh >> ~/.bash_profile

Note that if you do not yet have XQuartz installed, you will be forced to log out and in after that installation, and re-run this script.

You will be prompted for your sudo password at the following points in this process:

• Homebrew installation.
• Caskroom installation.
• XQuartz installation.
• Initializing rosdep.
• Creating and chowning your /opt/ros/[distro] folder.

The installation can be done entirely without sudo if Homebrew and XQuartz are already installed, rosdep is already installed and initialized, and you set the ROS_INSTALL_DIR environment variable to a path which already exists and you have write access to.

Troubleshooting

Python and pip packages

Already-installed homebrew and pip packages are the most significant source of errors, especially pip packages linked against the system Python rather than Homebrew's Python, and Homebrew packages (like Ogre) where multiple versions end up installed, and things which depend on them end up linked to the different versions. If you have MacPorts or Fink installed, and Python from either of those is in your path, that will definitely be trouble.

The script makes some attempt at detecting and warning about these situations, but some problems of this kind will only be visible as segfaults at runtime.

Unfortunately, it's pretty destructive to do so, but the most reliable way to give yourself a clean start is removing the current homebrew installation, and all currently-installed pip packages.

For pip: pip freeze | xargs sudo pip uninstall -y

For homebrew, see the following: https://gist.github.com/mxcl/1173223

If you take these steps, obviously also remove your ROS workspace and start the install process over from scratch as well. Finally, audit your $PATH variable to ensure that when you run python, you're getting Homebrew's python. Another way to check which Python you are running is to do:

which python # Should result in /usr/local/bin/python
ls -l $(which python) # Should show a symlink pointing to Homebrew's Cellar

If you are getting permission errors when you sudo uninstall pip packages, see Issue #11 and this StackOverflow Q&A.

El Capitan (and newer) support

The install script may not work as smoothly in OS X El Capitan. Here are some pointers, tips, and hacks to help you complete the installation. This list was compiled based on the discussion in Issue #12.

library not found for -ltbb

See Issue #4. You need to compile using Xcode's Command Line Tools:

xcode-select --install # Install the Command Line Tools
sudo xcode-select -s /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools # Switch to using them
gcc --version # Verify that you are compiling using Command Line Tools

The last command should output something that includes the following:

Configured with: --prefix=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr

You'll then have to rerun the entire install script or do the following:

rm -rf /opt/ros/indigo/* # More generally, /opt/ros/${ROS_DISTRO}/*
rm -rf build/ devel/ # Assuming your working dir is the catkin workspace
catkin build \
  ... # See actual script for the 4-line-long command

dyld: Library not loaded

If you see this after installation, when trying to execute rosrun, then you have System Integrity Protection enabled. The installation script should have detected that and suggested a quick fix. Please refer to the very last section of install

It is strongly recommended to disable SIP

Assorted notes

Below are assorted tips that I have compiled for fixing any issues that can crop up.

• It is basically impossible to get indigo to work on macOS sierra

  • This has to do with home-brew dropping qt4 support: mikepurvis#63

• rosdep —skip-keys command is useful for resolving dependencies

  • rosdep check --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro kinetic --skip-keys geographiclib --skip-keys geographiclib-tools

• Indigo still doesn’t work using qt@4

  • Can’t detect correct qt installation

• Important steps to get kinetic to work (all of these are critical):

  • Make sure using brew python/pip
  • Rviz needs ogre1.9

• Gazebo8

  • Uses Ogre1.9

• High Sierra

  • Make sure to set ROS_MASTER_URI to the actual machine name
  • Otherwise significant delays exist in running especially python based commands

• If having QT errors compiling look at the end of this thread:

  • Homebrew/legacy-homebrew#29938
  • Basically add path

• Command for updating pip if getting weird python errors

  • pip freeze --local | grep -v '^-e' | cut -d = -f 1 | xargs -n1 pip install -U

• If you start getting weird errors with accessing too many files, try:

  • ulimit -n 4096
  • See here for details
  • or
  • sudo sysctl -w kern.maxfiles=99999
  • sudo sysctl -w kern.maxfilesperproc=99999
  • ulimit -n 65536

• If running out of pty devices

  • sudo sysctl -w kern.tty.ptmx_max=999

• image_publisher currently fails. See this fix

• For Gazebo plugins, don't forget to setup /opt/ros/kinetic/lib in GAZEBO_PLUGIN_PATH and to export it into env

• mavros/mavlink

  • [workaround to get mavros to compile (endian.h) errors] (mavlink/mavros#851)

• If errors are encountered such as:

  Errors     << qt_gui_cpp:cmake /Users/steve/Documents_local/temp/kinetic/logs/qt_gui_cpp/build.cmake.000.log                        
  CMake Error at /Users/steve/Documents/ARL/Snapdragon/ros-install-osx/kinetic_desktop_full_ws/src/qt_gui_core/qt_gui_cpp/src/qt_gui_cpp/CMakeLists.txt:3 (find_package):
    By not providing "FindQt5Widgets.cmake" in CMAKE_MODULE_PATH this project
    has asked CMake to find a package configuration file provided by
    "Qt5Widgets", but CMake did not find one.
  
    Could not find a package configuration file provided by "Qt5Widgets" with
    any of the following names:
  
      Qt5WidgetsConfig.cmake
      qt5widgets-config.cmake
  
    Add the installation prefix of "Qt5Widgets" to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or set
    "Qt5Widgets_DIR" to a directory containing one of the above files.  If
    "Qt5Widgets" provides a separate development package or SDK, be sure it has
    been installed.
  

  • It means qt or pyqt are not correctly installed or in the path. Try the various relevant lines in the installation script such as:

    pushd /usr/local/share/sip
      if [ ! -e PyQt5 ]; then
        ln -s Qt5 PyQt5
      fi
      popd
    

    • export PATH=$(pwd)/shim:$PATH

    • brew link qt --force

    • export PATH="/usr/local/opt/qt/bin:$PATH"

• Python Crypto errors

  •   pip uninstall Crypto
      pip uninstall pycrypto
      pip install pycrypto
    

• If having issues with packages not finding terminal_color, you need to up catkin_pkg_modules

   sudo pip install --upgrade catkin_pkg_modules

• If the standard library is missing: such as

   error: no member named 'isfinite' in namespace 'std'; did you mean 'finite'?

  Run the following command (from here)

  #Check the current sdk
  xcrun --show-sdk-path
  
  #Change sdk
  sudo xcode-select -s /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools          #Using CommandLineTools SDK
  sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer   #Using XCode.app SDK