ROS Resources: Documentation | Support | Discussion Forum | Index | Service Status | ros @ Robotics Stack Exchange
Ask Your Question
1

Best desktop computer option for ROS

asked 2013-05-07 11:21:34 -0500

this post is marked as community wiki

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

I am planning to buy a new desktop specifically to use ROS and Turtlebot application. Is there a best option to go after. It would be nice to have a machine with Ubuntue and perhaps ROS pre-installed and a graphic card that is going to be the best option for Gazebo and rviz.

edit retag flag offensive close merge delete

Comments

Gazebo requires more power than rviz, for this reason I would ask this question to http://answers.gazebosim.org too If I were you. One has to be quite careful with graphic cards since not all of them work in ubuntu easily

martimorta gravatar image martimorta  ( 2013-05-08 23:23:44 -0500 )edit

2 Answers

Sort by ยป oldest newest most voted
2

answered 2013-05-09 03:54:53 -0500

this post is marked as community wiki

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

I use a System 76 Leopard Extreme as my desktop, and have been very happy with it. Enough power to run Gazebo and some control code, and zero problems with nVidia video card. Preinstalled with Ubuntu 12.04. I also have a Gazelle Professional laptop, which I'm similarly happy with, although it weighs a ton. The seem to have moved to an Intel graphics card for this, though, rather than the nVidia that I have in mine.

edit flag offensive delete link more

Comments

Thanks for your reply. I was wondering how much graphic card is needed, the default is 1GB nVidia, is it enough.

Solmaz gravatar image Solmaz  ( 2013-05-20 06:48:55 -0500 )edit
1

I've got whatever the default option is, and it's fine. A faster/better card will let you render more polygons, but the critical thing, IMO, is the closed-source nVidia drivers.

Bill Smart gravatar image Bill Smart  ( 2013-05-20 09:09:52 -0500 )edit

I'm quite happy with my System 76 Serval laptop. ZaReazon also makes a good platform as long as they have the discrete graphics cards.

tfoote gravatar image tfoote  ( 2013-05-27 16:38:49 -0500 )edit
0

answered 2013-05-07 19:57:27 -0500

ryeakle gravatar image

For choosing the desktop machine itself, I would pick one of the machines under the Ubuntu Desktop Certified Hardware list for 12.04LTS. You should be able to find it with your preferred search engine.This will ensure that Ubuntu itself will run well on the desktop hardware (no weird driver issues).

I don't think there are any Ubuntu installs with ROS already installed. If you follow the groovy install instructions on the main ROS page, it's a pretty quick, painless install using package manager tools. The guide walks you right through it.

Not sure about the graphics requirements for rviz/Gazebo.

edit flag offensive delete link more

Comments

I have made a custom Ubuntu 12.04 with ROS groovy already installed: https://sites.google.com/site/gustavovelascoh/content/rosubuntu

gustavo.velascoh gravatar image gustavo.velascoh  ( 2013-05-08 03:40:07 -0500 )edit

Question Tools

Stats

Asked: 2013-05-07 11:21:34 -0500

Seen: 1,748 times

Last updated: May 09 '13