Installing ROS Indigo on Intel Edison

Introduction

Most of this tutorial has been borrowed from the ROS tutorial on installing from source.

Install Debian / Ubilinux

While it should be possible to install ROS on Intel's Yocto distribution, it is very painful. I find it easier to use Emutex's Ublilinux. This gives you access to many Linux tools, including the invaluable apt.

Go to the Emutex page and download the Ubilinux distrubtion: http://www.emutexlabs.com/ubilinux.
Follow Emutex's installation instructions: http://www.emutexlabs.com/ubilinux/29-ubilinux/218-ubilinux-installation-instructions-for-intel-edison
When editing your /etc/network/interfaces file, make sure to un-comment the auto wlan0 line to have wlan come up at boot.

When you're done with those instructions, you should have a working Linux, connected via Wifi, and you should be able to ssh into.

Here are a few more steps to make your linux experience better. Using the same login name as on other machines on your network will make ROS communications easier. Execute these commands as root:

# apt-get install sudo screen
# useradd jsmith
# mkdir /home/jsmith
# chown jsmith:users /home/jsmith
# passwd jsmith
# echo "jsmith   ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL" >> /etc/sudoers
# chsh jsmith -s /bin/bash
# apt-get install git

Edit /etc/hosts and add "ubilinux" to the localhosts line. (If you don't do this, sudo won't work)

Install ROS

1. Set up ROS repositories

Follow Raspbery Pi instructions except for the following differences:

1.1 liblz4-dev:

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add line:

deb http://http.debian.net/debian wheezy-backports main

Install liblz4 with:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install liblz4-dev

1.2 console_bridge:

for issues with console_bridge

cd ~/ros_catkin_ws/external_src
sudo apt-get install libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev
git clone https://github.com/ros/console_bridge.git
cd console_bridge
cmake .
sudo checkinstall make install
sudo ./src/catkin/bin/catkin_make_isolated --install -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release --install-space /opt/ros/indigo