Setting up ROS on Ubuntu on Android on a mobile phone

How to set up ROS on Ubuntu on Android on a mobile phone.

I had some build errors when "Building the higher-level/tools (Layer 2)", but roscore, turtlesim, rxconsole, rxgraph, and rxplot work.

An overview of the steps:

  • Rooted your phone. (Beyond the scope of this wiki page)
  • Install the Terminal Emulator program from the Google Play app store.
  • Download "Complete Linux Installer" from the Google Play app store.
  • Use that to download and install Ubuntu (large version).
  • Follow the guide in the Complete Linux Installer (unzip the image, and move it)
  • Make the .img file bigger because there is not enough space for ROS. In the terminal, outside of Ubuntu: :

cd /mnt/sdcard/ubuntu
dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=1000000 >> ubuntu.img

(the "count" may have to be adjusted, or this command executed multiple times until the image is big enough)

It's slow, but it seems to be faster than the Rasperry Pi.

Screenshot:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-A2nk374OW2k/UHf7lv2AxuI/AAAAAAAAClo/JQX-yI5v1Fg/s455/ROS_phone.png

Wiki: ROSOnAndroid (last edited 2012-10-12 23:55:27 by JonStephan)