2023-05-25 Fedora Robotics SIG Meeting Notes

[lrossett (Leonardo Rossetti)]

Topics

• IRC/Matrix channels
  • #fedora-robotics @ libera.chat
  • #robotics:fedoraproject.org @ matrix (fedoraproject.org server)
• Risc V Topics
  • Latest sbcl package build issues
    • Broken on Fedora (>= 2.2.9)
      • Using 2.2.3 atm
    • A commit that added concurrency in the project
    • Risc V only issue
    • Steel Bank Common Lisp / sbcl / Commit [e50eda]
    • Build is failing on F37 and it was not built in F38
    • Koji build logs: https://openkoji.iscas.ac.cn/koji/taskinfo?taskID=881105
      • sbcl | Package Info | ISCAS openkoji system
• Other
  • O3DE
    • Reach out to @nfrizzel if you ware interested in supporting o3de in Fedora
  • ROS2 new release
    • RHEL9.2 release last week
    • A package from epel is broken
      • pysci2
• ROS2 build system
  • Sample package repository: GitHub - ament/ament_cmake: Supporting CMake packages for working with ament
  • No “packager” role in ROS
    • Packages are maintained by upstream project owners using ROS tooling to generate package metadata
  • Upstream projects are versioned using git tags
  • A branch per ROS release
  • Generated RPM spec file is a bit more verbose than an usual human generated spec file
  • One repository can own/release N packages
  • GitHub - ros/rosdistro: This repo maintains a lists of repositories for each ROS distribution
    • rosdistro/base.yaml at master · ros/rosdistro · GitHub
    • rosdistro/distribution.yaml at master · ros/rosdistro · GitHub
  • tag format: release/$version/$package/$version
  • ROS Build Farm
    • Jenkins instance
    • Agents runs on ubuntu
    • Builds in linux containers using docker
      • Runs mock inside the container
    • Tagging is faster than Koji due to its release/“repository” architecture
    • One job per package
    • Used to use QEMU inside containers for diff. archs.
      • Currently using cloud arm VMs instead
    • Post installs checks before generating repositoty metadata
    • Three hosts:
      • Jenkins Master node
      • N Jenkins Agent node(s)
      • 1 Repository node to serve packages
  • Follow-up links:
    • Source RPM packages for ROS 2 on RHEL 9: http://packages.ros.org/ros2/rhel/9/SRPMS/
    • Custom mock configuration template: ros_buildfarm/mock_config.cfg.em at master · ros-infrastructure/ros_buildfarm · GitHub
      • In particular, the following RPM configs are changed:
        • _empty_manifest_terminate_build %{nil}
        • _missing_build_ids_terminate_build %{nil}
        • __cmake_in_source_build 1
        • __cmake3_in_source_build 1
      • There are also some implicit dependencies installed to the buildroot:
        • gcc
        • gcc-c++
        • make
        • python3-rpm-macros

Action Items

• [everyone] Join our IRC/Matrix channels
• [lrossett] Take a look at the sbcl building issue
• Food for Thought: rebuild ROS source RPMs in a Koji instance

Next Meeting Topics

• Open to community topics

[mattdm (Matthew Miller)]

Wow — that’s a lot!

[jakfrost (Stephen Snow)]

Just out of curiosity @lrossett ,
Does Fedora have a RTOS variant (real time OS) similar to Qnx RTOS? It would be helpful for motion control as well as various instrumentation uses that are time critical. Also, is the focus on OpenPLC standards for the control logic? If so/not what are the build systems used ? And also, is this more oriented towards hobby efforts or is the goal to be able to provide tool chain capable of filling Industrial use cases?

[lrossett (Leonardo Rossetti)]

Apologies, I missed your comment somehow :\

I am not aware of a RTOS kernel in Fedora yet but the kernel dev. team might know more about it.

Our focus and/goals are about enabling Fedora as a robotics platform for both local development and “production use-cases”.

[jakfrost (Stephen Snow)]

Hello @lrossett ,
Thanks for the response. I’m okay with asynchronous communication, especially on this topic.
I am wondering what development tools you are looking at. I ask since my background is in Industrial Automation, specifically I am a Control Systems Specialist and a Solution Provider. My interest in Open PLC and HMI standards goes way back to my first introduction to Linux, where one of my customers was trying to substitute it for a Unix system as part of that companies ERP. I am talking 1995 here so early adopters for sure.
There are open standards now, IEC_61131-3 for PLC and HMI, particularly around what is required to be compliant, just not how to do it. I have found PLCOpen to be a good resource to use for newer product available, and for development on embedded hardware you are custom building.
This still leaves the how though, which is often hardware specific due to the nature of the devices involved. With motion, like on a robotic example, the safety design and the deterministic nature of it require something above the usual Arduino or RPi programming tools.

Some of the things I already do for my customers that are done on Fedora (in the past too), are like …

1. Manual Creation using TexStudio. Very good end product results on par with any paid for variant out there, LaTex is the best!
2. FreeCad for making Electrical/Electronic/Control Schematic pakcages. (Which will likely be a series of appendixes in the above manual.
3. Gimp of course, because graphics are for HMI’s as well as web pages used in newer PLC’s with the capabilites
4. Java for periphery device programs, such as bar code scanners and label printers or part echant printers and information display terminals
5. C for some rarely done embedded devices. Also widely used by some CNC machine builders and special test machine builders throughout the general manufacturing industries.
   I am interested in what direction the SiG intends to go for development tools, hardware intended to support, etc…
   Also of interest is using Fedora IoT as a platform to make a more focused solution built on it and run on it. Makes for easier hacking by people OOTB. It would be good to play around with some gear and that version of Fedora. I would love to test this type of thing.