Before arriving at VVV

Prepare your system

Please, bring your own laptop 💻 and install the Virtual Machine we prepared for the course to get you involved in the hands-on sessions.

Download our Virtual Machine

We have made available a Ubuntu VM 📀

• Download and install either one of the following two virtualization software:

  • VirtualBox (free)
    • We recommend to always install the latest version of VirtualBox.
      • For Linux OSs, please use the official Oracle packages and repositories detailed here.
        • For Debian/Ubuntu distributions, here are the commands to install the latest versions of VirtualBox using the official repositories:

        $ sudo add-apt-repository "deb https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian `lsb_release -cs` contrib"
        $ wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
        $ wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
        $ sudo apt update
        $ sudo apt install virtualbox-5.2
        $ sudo vboxconfig

  • VMWare Player (available with educational discount)

• Download our VM from Figshare.

  • The VM is archived within multiple RAR files. Use your preferred tool to unpack the VM.

• Import the VM with either:

  • VirtualBox with the "File --> Import Appliance" menu option, and during the import process:

    • install the Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack to have additional hardware support on the VM;

  • VMWare Player, during import process:

    • you may be asked to relax some constraints on the OVA/OVF format, click retry;
    • you may be asked to install VMWare Tools, click yes;
    • once installed, you may need to adjust the VM screen resolution;

  • Parallels on OSX, if you truly madly and deeply need to use the VM on OSX you will need to do a few things. Currently, conversion directly from OVA/OVF is not supported by Parallels Desktop, one needs then to: Download the ovftool from VMWare official site and install it on your mac. Once you have it installed, run the following command on the Terminal:

    /Applications/VMware\ OVF\ Tool/ovftool --lax VM_NAME.ova VM_EPR.vmx
    

    NOTE You need to specify the exact path to .ova file instead of VM_NAME.ova. The best way is to simply Drag'n'Drop the OVA file in the Terminal window after --lax (leaving a space between --lax /path).

    Open Parallels Desktop (in the Applications folder) and choose File > Open. Select the .vmx file you want to import, then click Open.

• Reserve at least 4096 MB of memory for the VM (required mainly for running Gazebo/RViz).

• We also suggest you reserve some Video RAM to smooth out your UX with GUIs. This depends on your system availability, hence there is no recommended size for it.

• VM's credentials are:

  login	password
  icub	icub

• Let's configure git on your machine. If you have already performed the following steps, you can jump over:

$ git config --global user.name "firstname lastname"
$ git config --global user.email "valid email"
$ git config --global color.pager true
$ git config --global color.ui auto
$ git config --global push.default upstream

• Activate the MATLAB installation. You have to create a Mathwork account and require a trial license of Matlab/Simulink (visit this link).

Once you obtained your trial license, you can launch the installer already downloaded in the VM:

$ sudo ~/Downloads/matlab_R2017b_glnxa64/install

and follow the instructions. More details can be found in our quick guide. Open Matlab to check that the license has been correctly activated.

Test your installation

Set your namespace to prevent a clash with other students when connected to the same network:

$ yarp namespace /<your-github-username>

Launch the yarp name server for the first time

$ yarpserver --write

Open up a new console and run the first check:

$ yarp check

expecting as the final result the string: "YARP seems okay!".

Proceed with a more complete demo:

$ git clone https://github.com/vvv-school/tutorial_cartesian-interface.git
$ cd tutorial_cartesian-interface/smoke-test
$ ./test.sh

getting the outcome below 🎉

Problems?

🤔 Should you experience any problem, don't hesitate to contact us by posting to our 👋 Q&A system.

Gear up

In view of attending the school, there might be still some time you want to exploit to gear up, especially if you feel you can improve your pace at the school by taking some refresher training. Don't worry though, we're going to cover most of the following points together (some are considered prerequisites, e.g. Linux, C++):

• Ubuntu: A beginner's Guide.
• Ubuntu: Master the command line.
• Tutorial on C++.
• Free Interactive C++.
• The C++ Build Process Explained.
• Guidelines to maintain better code.
• Learning Git.
• Try Git.
• Git Cheat Sheet.
• Interactive Git Cheat Sheet.
• The complete guide to Git.
• Hello World in GitHub.
• Git and GitHub learning resources.
• GitHub Learning Lab.
• CMake.
• Hello-world example using CMake.
• Yarp.
• iCub.

A.O.B.

• How to trim (survive) GitHub notifications 🔔. Disabling them all is not an option 😏. In short, you can subscribe/unsubscribe to conversations in multiple ways, the most relevant being per repository or per issue.
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