Getting ROS Up and Running on ArchLinux

ROS_on_ArchLinux.md

1. install yay or pikaur, DO NOT use pacaur as it does not handle version specific dependecies well(github issue).

2. install libpgm-git from aur

3. set MAKEFLAGS option to -j8 in /etc/makepkg.conf

4. increase sudo session timeout in /etc/sudoers :
   Defaults timestamp_timeout=600

5. start with: yay -S ros-melodic-desktop-full

6. select package ros-build-tools-py3 when aur helper asks

7. after that compilation has finished, setup an ROS workspace with python3 using:

mkdir workspace
cd workspace
mkdir src
catkin_make --cmake-args -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3

• more details at ArchWiki and ROS Forum

8. follow the ROS Tutorials

9. sudo sed -i.bak 's/urlparse/urllib.parse/' /opt/ros/melodic/lib/gazebo_ros/spawn_model

10. sudo sed -i.bak 's/python3 or type(_x) == unicode/type(_x) == str/' /opt/ros/melodic/lib/python3.7/site-packages/gazebo_msgs/srv/_SpawnModel.py

11. in case of the cv_bridge issue:

git clone https://github.com/ros-melodic-arch/ros-melodic-cv-bridge.git
makepkg --nobuild
# Apply the patch to the source code file.
makepkg --noextract -s -i