Build ROS Noetic on Ubuntu 24.04 Noble

This repository builds a bundled ROS Noetic desktop tree for Ubuntu 24.04 Noble. The generated Debian package installs ROS under /opt/ros/noetic.

This is a practical bundle package for Noble. The generated package keeps the traditional ros-noetic-desktop-full package name.

Scope

• Ubuntu 24.04 Noble
• amd64 builds first
• ROS Noetic desktop sources
• Classic Gazebo 11 from the Noble ROS PPA
• Bundled ros-noetic-desktop-full package with 307 discoverable ROS packages, counted with catkin_pkg.find_packages("src") after source import.

The imported source tree contains 324 package.xml files in total. The bundle count above excludes package manifests embedded in upstream test fixtures, such as catkin/test/mock_resources, because catkin does not treat those as build workspace packages.

Add the Noble ROS PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tianbot/ros2go
sudo apt update

Install build tools

sudo apt install -y build-essential cmake curl debhelper devscripts equivs git python3-rosdep vcstool

Prepare rosdep

The upstream Noetic rosdep data does not fully target Noble. Use the rosdistro snapshot vendored in this repository. It is based on the Noble mappings from the original rosdistro fork, but local builds no longer depend on Gitee being available.

sudo python3 scripts/install_rosdep_snapshot.py
export ROSDISTRO_INDEX_URL="file://$(pwd)/vendor/rosdistro/index-noetic.yaml"
rosdep update

To persist the setting:

echo "export ROSDISTRO_INDEX_URL=file://$(pwd)/vendor/rosdistro/index-noetic.yaml" >> ~/.bashrc

Fetch ROS sources

mkdir -p src
vcs import --input noetic-desktop.rosinstall ./src

For long-term rebuilds, mirror the tarballs first and import from the generated mirror input:

python scripts/mirror_rosinstall_sources.py --base-url "$ROS_SOURCE_MIRROR_BASE"
vcs import --input noetic-desktop.mirrored.rosinstall ./src

Install build dependencies

Some rosdep keys still do not resolve cleanly on Noble:

• libgazebo11-dev: Noble uses libgazebo-dev
• gazebo11: Noble uses gazebo
• hddtemp: removed from Ubuntu repositories

The PPA provides the Gazebo packages needed for the build, so skip the stale rosdep keys:

rosdep install --from-paths ./src \
  --ignore-packages-from-source \
  --rosdistro noetic \
  -y \
  --skip-keys='libgazebo11-dev hddtemp gazebo11'

Build and install locally

sudo mkdir -p /opt/ros/noetic
sudo chmod 777 /opt/ros/noetic

./src/catkin/bin/catkin_make_isolated \
  --install-space /opt/ros/noetic \
  --install \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -DCATKIN_ENABLE_TESTING=OFF \
  -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3

Build the Debian package

dpkg-buildpackage -b --root-command="sudo" -uc -us -j4

The output package is created in the parent directory.

Maintain Source Packages

ppa:tianbot/ros2go is the published archive. Use the source maintenance workflow in docs/source-maintenance.md to copy the baseline PPA, import individual source packages, apply Tianbot patches, and upload source changes.