Installing catkin_tools

You can install the catkin_tools package as a binary through a package manager like pip or apt-get, or from source.

Note

This project is still in beta and has not been released yet, please install from source. In particular, interface and behaviour are still subject to incompatible changes. If you rely on a stable environment, please use catkin_make instead of this tool.

Installing on Ubuntu with apt-get

First you must have the ROS repositories which contain the .deb for catkin_tools:

$ sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu `lsb_release -sc` main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
$ wget http://packages.ros.org/ros.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -

Once you have added that repository, run these commands to install catkin_tools:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install python-catkin-tools

Installing on other platforms with pip

Simply install it with pip:

$ sudo pip install -U catkin_tools

Installing from source

First clone the source for catkin_tools:

$ git clone https://github.com/catkin/catkin_tools.git
$ cd catkin_tools

Then install with the setup.py file:

$ python setup.py install

Note: Depending on your environment/machine, you may need to use sudo with this command.

Developing

Listed here are some useful tips for developing against catkin_tools.

Install catkin_tools for developing

To setup catkin_tools for fast iteration during development, use the develop verb to setup.py:

$ python setup.py develop

Now the commands, like catkin, will be in the system path and the local source files located in the catkin_tools folder will be on the PYTHONPATH. When you are done with your development, undo this by running this command:

$ python setup.py develop -u