Chico2 desktop machine configuration

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July 2009 note: this page is obsolete! Chico2 is no longer being used as the machine that manages VisLab demos. Please refer to the following page for more up-to-date configuration information: iCub laptop.

Operating system installation

We installed Ubuntu 8.04 'Hardy Heron' because it is proven to be stable and working well with the latest versions of ACE and YARP (as of May 2009).

Partitions

Hard disk partitioning
size mountpoint filesystem
498GB / ext3
2GB swap

Ubuntu installation parameters

machine name: chico2

user name: icub (don't use vislab user, as for demos yarprun requires all users to be called the same, and pc104 only has a 'icub' user - therefore, always use icub on chico2 too)

Operations after first boot

operations performed after the standard installation

  • system update
  • enabled nvidia drivers
  • removed the package network-manager-gnome.

Other operations performed

Network

  • manually configured the internet connection (/etc/network/interfaces):
  auto lo
  iface lo inet loopback
  
  auto eth1
  iface eth1 inet static
  address 10.10.1.52
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  network 10.10.1.0
  broadcast 10.10.1.255
  gateway 10.10.1.254
  • added the following lines to /etc/hosts, to enable running commands like: ping cortex1.
  10.10.1.50	pc104
  10.10.1.51	icubsrv
  10.10.1.52	chico2
  10.10.1.53	chico3 <-- this used to be venus' IP; not anymore
  10.10.1.1	cortex1
  10.10.1.2	cortex2
  10.10.1.3	cortex3
  10.10.1.4	cortex4
  10.10.1.5	cortex5
  10.10.1.41	icubbrain1
  10.10.1.42	icubbrain2

Additional packages

  • install some required packages:
  sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev libace-dev cmake libgsl0-dev libgtk2.0-dev libgtkmm-2.4-dev libglademm-2.4-dev cvs g++ subversion ssh

Additional RobotCub software

OpenCV

Ubuntu prepackaged version 1.0.0-4: 

  sudo apt-get install libcv1 libcvaux1 libcvaux-dev libcv-dev libhighgui1 libhighgui-dev opencv-doc python-opencv

YARP

  mkdir ~/YARP
  cd ~/YARP
  cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@yarp0.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/yarp0 login
  cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@yarp0.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/yarp0 co -P yarp2
  cd yarp2
  ccmake .
  #click "c" when cmake starts, then enable:
  #CREATE_DEVICE_LIBRARY_MODULES, CREATE_GUIS, CREATE_LIB_MATH.
  #click "c" again, then ENABLE_yarpmod_opencv_grabber.
  #click "c" a couple of times more, until nothing happens when you do it.
  #then click on "g": generate and quit.
  make
  make test
  sudo make install

Add these lines to /etc/bash.bashrc: 

  YARP_DIR=/home/icub/YARP/yarp2/
  export YARP_DIR
  YARP_ROOT=$YARP_DIR
  export YARP_ROOT

Before the following line of /etc/bash.bashrc 

 [ -z "$PS1" ] && return

add this: 

  # per-user environment variables (non-interactive and interactive mode)
  source $HOME/.bash_env

iCub software

In /home/icub/ do: 

  cvs -d vislab@cvs.robotcub.org:/cvsroot/robotcub co iCub
  ccmake .
  #click "c" when cmake starts, then enable:
  #CREATE_GUIS_GTK and CREATE_GUIS_GTKMM.
  #then click on "g": generate and quit.
  make
  sudo make install

add these lines to /etc/bash.bashrc: 

  ICUB_DIR=/home/icub/iCub/
  export ICUB_DIR
  ICUB_ROOT=$ICUB_DIR
  export ICUB_ROOT

add these lines to ~/.bash_env: 

 export ICUB_DIR=/home/icub/iCub
 export ICUB_ROOT=$ICUB_DIR
 export PATH=$PATH:/home/icub/iCub/bin

comment one line in /etc/bash.bashrc for yarp run to get the correct environment variables through ssh: 

 #MATTEO: I commented this line as it was probably the source of all evil!
 # If not running interactively, don't do anything
 #[ -z "$PS1" ] && return

modify /etc/environment adding the path of the iCub binaries at the end of the PATH line: 

  PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/home/vislab/iCub/bin"

I'm not sure if this takes effect immediately, but after a reboot it does. this enables yarp run to find the binaries.

  • create a local version of these configuration files, in $ICUB_DIR/app/default/scripts:
  cp config.sh.template config.sh
  cp config-nodes.sh.template config-nodes.sh
  #there might be some misspellings in them, beware.
  • edit file $ICUB_ROOT/app/default/scripts/config-nodes.sh like this:
  NODE_CAMERAS=pc104
  NODE_VIEWERS=chico2

More VisLab-specific configuration

  • set up passwordless log-in to the Cortex computers:
  #generate the public and private keys on this computer. enter empty strings when prompted for various answers.
  ssh-keygen   
  #the cortex computers (ip addresses 10.10.1.1 to 10.10.1.5) share the same disk, so you need to do the set up only once.

  #copy the public key you just generated to cortex1, on the user account you want to use there (e.g. demo).
  scp /home/vislab/.ssh/id_rsa.pub demo@10.10.1.1:   
  #log in to cortex1
  ssh demo@10.10.1.1
  #add the public key to the authorized ones
  cat id_rsa.pub  >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys   
  #remove the id_rsa.pub file and log out from cortex1.
  rm id_rsa.pub
  exit
  exit
  #log in again to each cortex computer, to check that the process worked and they don't prompt for a password.
  • set up passwordless log-in to pc104

pc104 boots from a read-only medium, so you cannot modify permanently its authorized_keys file. pc104, though, mounts a part of icubsrv's hard-disk and then runs some scripts from there (see the pc104 page for reference). 

  #copy the usual public key to the icubsrv (laptop)
  scp id_rsa.pub icub@10.10.1.51:
  #ssh to icubsrv
  ssh icub@10.10.1.51
  #add the key to the authorized ones
  cat id_rsa.pub >> /exports/code-pc104/pc104/hooks/keys/authorized_keys
  #rm the id_rsa.pub file
  rm id_rsa.pub

Restart pc104 and check that you can log in passwordlessly. If you receive an RSA key error because of different pc104 hardware setups (with or without pen), thus different RSA keys, you can use this option: 

  ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no pc104

Customization of GNOME panel

See Chico2 desktop machine configuration/Archive for obsolete information. Here we report how we actually proceeded.

  • add buttons to the panel/bar at the top of the screen, to conveniently open terminals and file managers on remote machines.

the top bar should look something like this when you're done: 

  pick the images you like and turn them into 48x48pixel gif images (you can use the GIMP for this).
  
  example for the button to open the gnome-terminal on cortex1:
  right click on the panel and select "add to panel"
  select "custom application launcher"
  click on the icon and select the directory where your icons are, typically ~/Pictures/
  click on open, then select the picture for this particular button
  write in the field "command": gnome-terminal --window-with-profile=cortex -e "ssh icub@10.10.1.1 -X"
  set the name to something like: ssh icub@cortex1
  the profile specified (--window-with-profile=cortex) does not exist by default, you need to create it.
  those profiles are used to give terminals on different machines different colors (e.g. all terminals running in a cortex computer will be blue, terminals local to chico2 will be white, etc.).
  to create the "cortex" profile:
  open a terminal on, say, cortex1
  click on File, select "new profile" and name it "cortex". choose the colors. cortex windows usually are blue with white text, while pc104 windows are yellow with black text.
  • note: for pc104 it might be necessary to add a StrictHostKeyChecking=no option argument to ssh (because there are different incompatible keys depending on the pc104 hardware setup, i.e., with or without pen):
  gnome-terminal --window-with-profile=pc104 -e "ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no icub@10.10.1.50 -X"
  • for the buttons that start nautilus, the file manager, on pc104 and on cortex (once again, all cortex computers share the same disk, so you need only one button for them) you should use these lines of code:
  nautilus sftp://icub@10.10.1.50/home/icub/
  nautilus sftp://icub@10.10.1.1/home/demo

and... you're done! easy, huh? :-)

if you'd like to, you can set the desktop background to:

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