The following is a quick guide for setting up the Pioneer LX onboard machine if one needs to reinstall the OS. The same guide applies if setting up your own PC to run the MobileSim simulator offline. This includes setting up the ARIA and ARNL libraries and setting up ROS and dependencies.

Linux Ubuntu 16.04

The Pioneer LX onboard computer is currently running Linux Xubuntu 16.04.

Before reinstalling the OS:

• Backup all modified files, scripts, code and maps and upload updated versions to Github.

During installation:

• You can install a new OS from a USB like you would on any regular personal computer.
• DO NOT use and dashes (-) in the username or password. If you do this you will not be able to use MobileEyes with the Cyborg. There might be other symbols MobileEyes will not accept, so be smart when choosing username and password.
• You should select automatic login without password. If you do not do this you will need to (a) connect a keyboard (and monitor) whenever you start the Pioneer LX or (b) write a configuration file in the OS for this.

Install the MobileRobots libraries

More detailed description to come

1. Download MobileRobots libraries from Box:
   1. For communication with onboard sensors and actuators and for use with rosaria:
      1. ARIA
   2. For ARNL navigation and ros-arnl (using ARIA):
      
      1. ARNL: libarnl_1.9.2a+ubuntu16_amd64.deb
      2. ARNL-BASE: arnl-base_1.9.2+ubuntu16_amd64.deb (must be same version as ARNL)
2. Install the .deb files

ROS Kinetic setup

Robot Operating System (ROS) version ROS Kinetic (requires Ubuntu 16.04) is installed on the Pioneer LX.

A Bash script has been written in order to automate the setup of ROS Kinetic and other dependencies on the Pioneer LX: pioneerlx_setup. Rather than running the script, it's better to run each individual command one by one.

For more information on setting up ROS kinetic, see ROS Kinetic installation.

MobileEyes and MobileSim

• Install MobileEyes (Windows only) if you wish run the client-side GUI tool to monitor and control the Pioneer LX. This requires running arnlServer (included in ARNL) on the Pioneer LX or though MobileSim. MobileEyes can also be used with ros-arnl
• Install MobileSIm if you want to run a simulator of the Pioneer LX on your computer.

Make the startup script auto-run at login

Small changes to the procedure may be needed for other Ubuntu versions. For Xubuntu 16.04 the following proceedure works:

1. Open the Settings Manager.
2. Go to the Session and Startup configuration.
3. Under the sub-menu Application Autostart you can add and configure what applications and scripts will run at start.
4. The startup script I created is added under the name start script. The command I used can be found below.

The Correct Command Entry

I wanted the script to run in a new terminal window so it would be easier to terminate it. If it is not launched in a terminal window, we would have to use a process manager like Htop to terminate the script in stead of just closing the terminal. To run the script in a new terminal I enter the following command in the command entry for the start script discussed above:

xfce4-terminal --command "python /home/cyborg/start_scripts/start.py"

Add User to Dialout

For Aria to be able to connect to the peripherals you must make one specific Aria file and give your Ubuntu user access to the dialout.

Use the following command, but change <MyUser> to the user name of the Cyborg’s Ubuntu user:

sudo adduser <MyUser> dialout