meta-ros Release plan

Dear community!

I would like to ask you a question about release plan. On the https://docs.ros.org/en/rolling/Releases.html I can see, that Jazzy has EOL set to 2029, which seems to me the LTS version.

If I look at the Release table I don't see such a combination. Yocto's Scarthgap branch is a LTS and I would like to use it with Jazzy I see here a meta-ros2-jazzy layer but not in a table. So is it possible to use such a combination? Would it be possible to update the table and mark a Jazzy as a LTS as well?

Thank you

Jul 15 '24 09:07 andy9a9

Hi @andy9a9,

Yes, it is possible to use meta-ros2-jazzy with Scarthgap, Kirkstone, and with Styhead (ie "master"). You can see the kas configurations here: https://github.com/ros/meta-ros/tree/build/kas

I will update the table to reflect that soon. Most of my testing lately has been on Rolling while I have been working to set up CI/CD builds. If you encounter any problems with Jazzy let me know and I can backport any fixes you need.

Regards, Rob

Jul 17 '24 11:07 robwoolley

Hello @robwoolley ,

That's a great news, thanks!

I tried to migrate my layer the iron branch to jazzy, here are my changes which I had to do (I'm not at the end yet):
- missing commit https://github.com/ros/meta-ros/commit/ea5be5a69008ad12628b7a224afa958b410e0a03
- extend some recipes for native variant
  - rqt-runtime-monitor -> python3-pyqt5-sip -> python3-pyqt5 -> qtquickcontrols2
  - this is little bit funny, while python3-pyqt5-native recipe doesn't exist since kirkstone
- unable to build liblz4-vendor
  - stacked at the failing chain ros-base, rosbag2, rosbag2-storage-default-plugins, rosbag2-storage-mcap, mcap-vendor, liblz4-vendor, ROS_UNRESOLVED_DEP-liblz4-dev

More info will come once I move forward...

Jul 23 '24 13:07 andy9a9

Hi @andy9a9 ,

The sip tool jumped several major releases between kirkstone and scarthgap.

Some major fixes were required. I need to upstream them to oe-core and meta-qt5.

Details can be found in the working group minutes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LqUjcu6vdlqVJO62SreCyjzddNDZhfO2n-7qYghY_cQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

Let me know if there's anything I can help with.

Regards, Rob

Jul 23 '24 13:07 robwoolley

Good to know :). But have can I proceed with the liblz4-vendor error? I see there an options:

remove depends liblz4-vendor from mcap-vendor
create something like SKIP_RECIPE[liblz4-vendor] ?= "${@bb.utils.contains('ROS_WORLD_SKIP_GROUPS', 'liblz4-vendor', 'Depends on unavailable ROS_UNRESOLVED_DEP-liblz4-dev', '', d)}"
downgrade mcap-vendor to get rid of liblz4-vendor dependency just for now
or ?

Jul 23 '24 14:07 andy9a9

As a temporary measure, I set the variable in ros-distro.inc (in master-next meta-ros2-rolling) ROS_UNRESOLVED_DEP-liblz4 = "lz4"

The correct long-term fix is to add an entry for OpenEmbedded under liblz4 in the rosdep metadata files.

Jul 25 '24 02:07 robwoolley

Hi @robwoolley ,

thanks for ROS_UNRESOLVED_DEP-liblz4 = "lz4" hint. I made a little progress here:

some packages are failing on [buildpaths] in final

there is a class ros2_distro.bbclass which is dealing with that, but not fully, while is not handling paths under ros_prefix

I suggest to extend the class a little bit like:

+ROS_PREFIX_PATH ?= "${datadir}"
  do_install:append:class-target() {
-    if [ -d ${D}${datadir}/ament_index/resource_index/parent_prefix_path ]; then
-        find ${D}${datadir}/ament_index/resource_index/parent_prefix_path -type f \
+    if [ -d ${D}${ROS_PREFIX_PATH}/ament_index/resource_index/parent_prefix_path ]; then
+        find ${D}${ROS_PREFIX_PATH}/ament_index/resource_index/parent_prefix_path -type f \
                 | xargs --no-run-if-empty sed -i -e 's@${STAGING_DIR_HOST}/@/@g' -e 's@${STAGING_DIR_NATIVE}/@/@g'
      else
            true

default behavior is untouched, but recipes could override the path via ROS_PREFIX_PATH = "${ros_datadir}"`
- required changes
  - eigen3-cmake-module
  - orocos-kdl-vendor
  - shared-queues-vendor

shared-queues-vendor_0.26.1-2
- this component will never be build from dc17fed08353f30a7e20676df7c8fc5e842ed011
  - previous branch release/jazzy/shared_queues_vendor doesn't exist anymore and release/rolling/shared_queues_vendor/0.24.0-1 is not a tag
    - so ROS_BRANCH = "nobranch=1" has to be set
orocos-kdl-vendor_0.5.0-3
- same problem with building as with shared-queues-vendor_0.26.1-2
  - nobranch
- 0001-CMakeLists.txt-use-system-orocos-kdl.patch
  - never used
- 0001-CMakeLists.txt-fetch-orocos-kdl-with-bitbake-fetcher.patch
  - can't be applied
- requires python-orocos-kdl as a build-dep, but this component requires orocos-kdl-vendor
  - circular loop
- has to be fixed somehow!
  - maybe...
    - ```
    ROS_BRANCH = "nobranch=1"
    
    LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://package.xml;beginline=13;endline=13;md5=557f7c2686192731d23aed84d2eebcb9"
    
    S = "${WORKDIR}/git/orocos-kdl/orocos_kdl"
```

yaml-cpp-vendor_9.0.0-2

requires similar changes as here https://github.com/ros/meta-ros/commit/ad82ae26c7d098ab8d9bccf59de971e089e862f2 but for different version

--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
 @@ -9,26 +9,18 @@ ament_add_default_options()
 # NO_CMAKE_PACKAGE_REGISTRY used to avoid finding the library downloaded in WORKSPACE B
 # when building workspace A.
 # This should only find a system installed yaml-cpp and thus the environment hook isn't needed.
-find_package(yaml-cpp 0.8.0 QUIET NO_CMAKE_PACKAGE_REGISTRY)
-
+find_package(yaml-cpp 0.8.0 QUIET NO_CMAKE_PACKAGE_REGISTRY)
+if(yaml-cpp_FOUND)
+  message(STATUS "Found yaml-cpp ${yaml-cpp_VERSION}")
+else()
+  message(FATAL_ERROR "yaml-cpp not found -- missing from DEPENDS?")
+endif()
+ 
 set(YAML_CPP_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS}")
 if(MSVC)
   set(YAML_CPP_CXX_FLAGS "/wd4251 /wd4275 ${YAML_CPP_CXX_FLAGS}")
 endif()

-ament_vendor(yaml_cpp_vendor
-  SATISFIED ${yaml-cpp_FOUND}
-  VCS_URL https://github.com/jbeder/yaml-cpp.git
-  VCS_VERSION 0.8.0
-  GLOBAL_HOOK
-  CMAKE_ARGS
-    "-DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=${YAML_CPP_CXX_FLAGS}"
-    -DYAML_CPP_BUILD_CONTRIB:BOOL=OFF
-    -DYAML_CPP_BUILD_TESTS:BOOL=OFF
-    -DYAML_CPP_BUILD_TOOLS:BOOL=OFF
-    -DYAML_BUILD_SHARED_LIBS:BOOL=${BUILD_SHARED_LIBS}
-)
-
 ament_package(
   CONFIG_EXTRAS "yaml_cpp_vendor-extras.cmake.in"
 )

I'm still not at the end :)

Jul 26 '24 10:07 andy9a9

Hello again,

so I went into end of compilation. Here are the latest changes which I had to made:

python-qt-binding

# python3-pyqt5-native dependency which wasn't needed
DEPENDS:remove = "sip3-native python3-pyqt5-native"
DEPENDS:append = "sip-native "

ros2_distro.bbclass

this https://github.com/ros/meta-ros/commit/90d09961ad890fb9c2cb315c9a0b8d792e10e535 change the prefix, but didn't change everything

 do_install:append:class-target() {
-    if [ -d ${D}${ros_datadir}/ament_index/resource_index/parent_prefix_path ]; then
-        find ${D}${ros_datadir}/ament_index/resource_index/parent_prefix_path -type f \
+    if [ -d ${D}${ROS_PREFIX_PATH}/ament_index/resource_index/parent_prefix_path ]; then
+        find ${D}${ROS_PREFIX_PATH}/ament_index/resource_index/parent_prefix_path -type f \
             | xargs --no-run-if-empty sed -i -e 's@${STAGING_DIR_HOST}/@/@g' -e 's@${STAGING_DIR_NATIVE}/@/@g'
 else
     true

ament-cmake-gen-version-h

reflect changes from https://github.com/ament/ament_cmake/pull/526

diff --git a/cmake/ament_generate_version_header.cmake b/cmake/ament_generate_version_header.cmake
index d9470b40..5d2a2795 100644
--- a/cmake/ament_generate_version_header.cmake
+++ b/cmake/ament_generate_version_header.cmake
@@ -147,7 +147,7 @@ function(ament_generate_version_header target)
       "${SCRIPT_TEMPLATE_FILE}"
     COMMENT "Generating ${ARG_HEADER_PATH}")

-  add_custom_target("ament_generate_version_header__${target}"
+  add_custom_target("ament_generate_version_header__${target}" ALL
     DEPENDS "${GENERATED_HEADER_FILE}")
   add_dependencies("${target}" "ament_generate_version_header__${target}")

control-toolbox
- ROS_BUILDTOOL_DEPENDS += "generate-parameter-library-py-native"

orocos-kdl-vendor

f1bbaed1b5190dbfefd08ca445e53d20d1a0066e has a problem with compilation, switching back to original version
- SRCREV_release = "92eb6e580958a6834df2c1c1ecee92cdbac2f363"
refresh 0001-CMakeLists.txt-fetch-orocos-kdl-with-bitbake-fetcher

# remove ros_prefix from pkconfig files
do_install:append:class-target() {
    for f in ${D}${ros_libdir}/pkgconfig/* ; do
        sed -i $f -e 's@${STAGING_DIR_HOST}${includedir}@\$\{includedir}@g' -e 's@${STAGING_DIR_NATIVE}${includedir}@\$\{includedir}@g'
    done
}

create/apply disable-compiler-warnings patch
- controller-interface
- controller-manager
- hardware-interface
- forward-command-controller
- imu-sensor-broadcaster
- joint-state-broadcaster
- joint-trajectory-controller
- pid-controller
  - ROS_BUILDTOOL_DEPENDS += "generate-parameter-library-py-native"
- position-controllers
- range-sensor-broadcaster
- velocity-controllers
rosbag2-compression-zstd
- refresh 0001-CMakeLists.txt-drop-dependency-on-zstd_vendor
rsl
- ROS_BUILDTOOL_DEPENDS += "rosidl-default-runtime-native"
fix license issues

Basically that it! :) I didn't try to run it yet, so lets see... .

Jul 29 '24 14:07 andy9a9

@robwoolley Are there any news? :)

Sep 08 '24 15:09 andy9a9