Installing PX4 on Ubuntu 24.04 x64 VM

henrihein · June 21, 2024, 11:02pm

I am trying to get PX4 to run on a 64-bit VM with Ubuntu 24.04. I got some problems running the ubuntu.sh configuration script. I could fix most of them, but I reached an impasse with libncurses5. The newest version of that seems to require an older version of libtinfo6. Here is the specific error I’m getting:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libncurses5-dev : Depends: libtinfo6 (= 6.2-Oubuntu2.1) but 6.4+20240113-1ubunt
u2 is to be installed
Depends: libncurses-dev (= 6.2-Oubuntu2.1) but 6.4+20240113-1
ubuntu2 is to be installed
libncursesw5-dev : Depends: libtinfo6 (= 6.2-Oubuntu2.1) but 6.4+20240113-1ubun
tu2 is to be installed
Depends: libncurses-dev (= 6.2-Oubuntu2.1) but 6.4+20240113-
1ubuntu2 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I manually installed the 6.2-0ubuntu2.1 version of libtinfo6, but that didn’t solve the problem.

Should I try on an older version of Ubuntu?

JulianOes · June 22, 2024, 7:50am

I don’t know whether Ubuntu 24.04 is supported yet. If you use 22.04 it should be fine.

henrihein · June 24, 2024, 5:14pm

Thanks Julian. I will try v22.004.

Gi_T · September 1, 2024, 7:27pm

Is there any update on Ubuntu 24.04 support?

Gi_T · September 22, 2024, 7:34am

I created a pull request that uses --break-system-packages to install all Python dependencies as a workaround:

github.com/PX4/PX4-Autopilot

setup: Ubuntu setup Python >= 3.11 installation workaround

PX4:main ← TannerGilbert:fix/ubuntu-24.04-installation-workaround

opened 07:11AM - 22 Sep 24 UTC

TannerGilbert

+34 -28

### Note This PR is heavily based on work by @MaEtUgR in #23126 ### Solved… Problem Starting with Python 3.11 installing packages into externally managed python installations is restricted. This leads to installation problems on Ubuntu 24.04 which uses Python 3.12 by default. As discussed in #23126 the best way to make the installation work on Ubuntu 24.04 would be to introduce full virtual environment support. This is already tackled by #23126 and #23228 but doesn't work as expected yet. Therefore as a temporary workaround `--break-system-packages` should be used similary to what was added for the Arch install in #21340. ### Alternatives Finish virtual environment PRs. ### Test coverage Tested on Ubuntu 24.04 VM and Docker container. Testing steps: ``` git clone https://github.com/TannerGilbert/PX4-Autopilot bash PX4-Autopilot/Tools/setup/ubuntu.sh cd PX4-Autopilot make px4_sitl make px4_sitl gz_x500 ``` Test Dockerfile: ``` FROM osrf/ros:jazzy-desktop-full RUN apt update && apt install -y git wget RUN git clone --recursive -b fix/ubuntu-24.04-installation-workaround https://github.com/TannerGilbert/PX4-Autopilot /root/PX4-Autopilot RUN bash /root/PX4-Autopilot/Tools/setup/ubuntu.sh RUN git clone https://github.com/zeromq/cppzmq.git && \ cd cppzmq && \ mkdir build && \ cd build && \ cmake .. && \ make install WORKDIR /root/PX4-Autopilot RUN make px4_sitl CMD [ "bash" ] ```

There is also Ubuntu 24.04 Support by MaEtUgR · Pull Request #23126 · PX4/PX4-Autopilot · GitHub that started implementing the switch to Python virtual environments which would be the better way of fixing the installation issues. This doesn’t fully work yet though as far as I’m aware.