ROS2 Humble GUI-Docker Container: A Step-by-Step Guide

Developing with ROS2 (Robot Operating System 2) can often be simplified by using Docker to create an isolated and reproducible environment. By using Docker, you can avoid version conflicts, ensure consistency across machines, and facilitate easy collaboration. With Docker, the development and deployment processes become much more streamlined, especially when working with complex robotic software like ROS2, which requires precise versioning and specific dependencies. In this blog post, we will go through the process of creating a custom ROS2 Docker container step-by-step, using a set of files that define the entire setup.

ROS2 is a powerful framework for developing robotic systems, but it comes with numerous dependencies and a steep setup curve. This complexity makes Docker an excellent choice for managing ROS2 environments. Using Docker ensures that everyone on your development team is running the same configuration, which reduces debugging time and avoids unexpected behaviors that can arise due to environment discrepancies. By the end of this guide, you will have a robust and repeatable ROS2 development environment that you can easily share and reuse.

Prerequisites

Before we dive into the setup, make sure you have Docker installed on your system. You can follow the installation guide on…