Note: Building the image is optional, keep reading for instructions on how to pull a pre-built one.
The repository contains a Containerfile that can be used to build the image locally:
cd zero-to-slam/
cd container-image/
./build-container-image.sh
You should see the image available using the command podman images:
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE
localhost/zero-to-slam-image latest 983c10fb2c41 14 seconds ago ago 4.37 GB
docker.io/osrf/ros humble-desktop-full-jammy 26438fe1f0c9 24 hours ago ago 3.93 GB
Instead of building the container yourself, I made it available on dockerhub:
podman pull docker.io/bcaian/zero-to-slam
The scripts will always prefer the docker version when available.
Test the container by querying the ROS environment variables inside it:
cd zero-to-slam/
./scripts/ros2-container.sh env | grep ROS
You should see the following:
ROS_VERSION=2
ROS_PYTHON_VERSION=3
ROS_LOCALHOST_ONLY=0
ROS_DISTRO=humble
But if you run the same command without the container:
env | grep ROS
The result should be empty because ROS2 is not installed on the host machine, instead it exists only inside the container (unless you have installed it in your system before this guide).
Note: One important caveat is that only the current directory is available inside the container, under the alias /workspace. Keep this in mind when passing paths to files and folders. Always use relative paths, and they must never exit the current folder.