Introduction

This document provides an overview about the options to use different versions of ROS in combination with different versions of Gazebo. It is recommended to read it before installing the Gazebo ROS wrappers.

Important! simple analysis for a quick and correct decision

If you are planning on using a specific version of ROS and don't have a reason to use a specific version of Gazebo, you should proceed with the Installing gazebo_ros_pkgs tutorial which explains how to install the fully supported version of gazebo by ROS.

Warning: note that using a different gazebo version than the official version delivered from the ROS repositories could end up in conflicts or other integration problems with ROS packages.

Gazebo versions and ROS integration

Gazebo is an independent project like boost, ogre or any other project used by ROS. Usually, the latest major version of gazebo available at the beginning of every ROS release cycle (for example gazebo11 for ROS Noetic) is selected as the official one to be fully integrated and supported and will be kept during the whole life of the ROS distribution.

Gazebo development is not synced with ROS, so each new major version of Gazebo must be released before being used in a ROS distribution. The following sections cover how to use ROS with different versions of Gazebo.

Note that Gazebo ABI stability policy follows the semantic versioning philosophy, in which all versions that have the same major number (gazebo_11.0.0, gazebo_11.1.0, gazebo_11.0.1, ...) are binary compatible and thus interchangeable when using the same ROS distro.

Installing Gazebo

Gazebo Ubuntu packages

The easiest way of installing Gazebo is to use packages. There are two main repositories which host Gazebo packages: one is packages.ros.org and the other is packages.osrfoundation.org. At the time of writing:

• packages.ros.org
  • ROS Melodic: Gazebo 9.x
  • ROS Noetic: Gazebo 11.x
  • ROS2 Foxy: Gazebo 11.x
  • ROS2 Rolling: Gazebo 11.x
• packages.osrfoundation.org
  • gazebo 9.x series (package name gazebo9)
  • gazebo 11.x series (package name gazebo11)

This means that including the osrfoundation repository is not strictly needed to get the Gazebo Ubuntu package. It can be installed from the ros repository.

Gazebo built from source

If you have compiled a gazebo version from source, note that depending on the repository branch used (gazebo9 or gazebo11) your gazebo will be binary compatible with the gazebo_ros_pkgs (and all other ROS packages compiled on top of gazebo) only if the major version matches your local branch repository and the gazebo version used in your ROS distro. For example, if you are compiling from gazebo branch gazebo11, you can use the gazebo_ros_pkgs present in Noetic (which uses gazebo11 series).

Note that if you are using default branch, you are probably not binary compatible with any of the packages released, so you will need a catkin workspace for getting a valid gazebo_ros_pkgs.

Using the default Gazebo version for a ROS distribution

For the users that need to run a specific version of ROS and want to use all the gazebo ROS related packages out-of-the-box, this is the recommended section:

ROS2 Foxy and ROS2 Rolling

ROS2 Foxy and ROS2 Rolling host or use the 11.x version of Gazebo. For a fully-integrated ROS system, we recommend using the 11.x version of Gazebo. The way to proceed is just to use the ROS repository (it will automatically install gazebo11) and do not use the osrfoundation repository.

ROS1 Noetic

ROS Noetic hosts or use the 11.x version of Gazebo. For a fully-integrated ROS system, we recommend using the 11.x version of Gazebo. The way to proceed is just to use the ROS repository (it will automatically install gazebo11) and do not use the osrfoundation repository.

ROS1 Melodic

ROS Melodic hosts or use the 9.x version of Gazebo. For a fully-integrated ROS system, we recommend using the 9.x version of Gazebo. The way to proceed is just to use the ROS repository (it will automatically install gazebo9) and do not use the osrfoundation repository.

Using a specific Gazebo version with ROS

Warning!: Using this option, you won't be able to use any ROS Ubuntu package related to Gazebo from ROS deb repository. The equivalent of gazebo_ros_pkgs can be installed from debian packages, but all other software (such as turtlebot_gazebo) must be built from source. Thanks to catkin workspaces or colcon workspaces this is quite easy to do.

There is a way of using any specific version of gazebo and ROS if really needed:

Gazebo 11.x series

The OSRF repository provides -gazebo11- versions of ROS/Melodic or ROS2/Eloquent gazebo wrappers (gazebo11_ros_pkgs) which are built on top of the gazebo11 package. The steps to use them are:

• Add the osrfoundation repository to your sources list.
• Install ros-$ROS_DISTRO-gazebo11-ros-pkgs and/or ros-$ROS_DISTRO-gazebo11-ros-control from the osrfoundation repository, which will install the gazebo11 package.
• Use catkin workspaces to compile the rest of the software used from source.

FAQ

I am not using ROS at all, which version should I use?

If you don't need ROS support, the recommended version is the latest released version that can be installed using the osrfoundation repo.

I need to use gazebo11 and ROS Melodic what can I do?

Warning!: Using this option, you won't be able to use any ROS Melodic package related to Gazebo from ROS deb repository. The way to go is to build them from source. Thanks to catkin workspaces this is quite easy to do.

If you need some features only present in the version 11.x of Gazebo, there is a way of installing gazebo11and ROS Melodic/Dashing/Eloquent. Please follow the instructions about how to use ROS with gazebo11 package which are in this same document.

Some ROS packages conflict with GazeboX ROS Wrappers!

Note that each ROS distribution is designed to be used with an specific version of Gazebo (gazebo9 in Melodic). When someone chooses to use a different version of Gazebo than the one recommended in the ROS distribution, problems may appear and some of them could be unsolvable.

If you a find a dependency conflict (for example with RVIZ) after trying to install one of the versions described in this document, you will need to probably install ROS or Gazebo from source.