raspberry pi with ROS Indigo ( or any new Release of ROS)

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I have a partial answer for you, but that can come in VERY handy, especially when it comes to installing from source.

This is my personal experience, and I had limited iterations with it (tried just a few times) but worked well.

Start with a standard debian SD image; Run this image using QEMU, on a regular (powerful) computer.

Before you start, make sure you have enough space on that image. Two GB can be too small. Four GB just right for the basics. I would recommend 16 GB, if the price is right for you. Keep in mind that later you will install this image on an ACTUAL SD card.

Instead of creating an image with 16 GB, create it with 15900 MB. It is the never ending discussion about 1024 vs 1000, and sometimes the actual available space on a storage device will not be the ACTUAL reported space on the label.

There are a few tricks you have to apply in order to get your ARM image to run on a qemu environment, but it works well. download, install and compile all you want on that image

I no longer have the links that I used to create my images, but here are the key points:

• resizing an SD image (tricky. Look into solutions that include gparted, and mounting the image as a loop device).
• Running the image with quemu (relatively easy, but you will be "limited" to 256 MB ram)
• transferring the final image to the SD card.

Note: I did it for Hydro. Not yet for Indigo, but it should work.

Cheers.

++++++++++++++++++++++++----------- LONG ADDITION -------------+++++

Well, would you look at that. I found some of my notes I meant to transform into a WIKI/HOWTO but never finished.

Before following or applying my steps, refer to the original links posted here. I recommend you understand the story rather than just repeating command lines.

WARNING ! THESE INSTRUCTIONS WERE TESTED AND WORK, BUT IN THE END, I FOUND EASIER WAYS AND DID NOT UPDATE THE DOCUMENT.

CONSIDER THIS A GUIDELINE AND NOT - I REPEAT NOT - A RECIPE FOR A SUCCESSFUL OPERATION.

SORRY FOR THIS. It was my best effort.

Well, like some people out there, I am taking my first steps in the ROS world, and my weapons of choice are a Raspberry PI (rev b, with 512 MB), an Ubuntu 12.04 running on VMWare Fusion, to be used as the "base station", and an idea in my head.

Anyone trying their luck with a RPI knows that installing ROS takes time. Some brave souls out there created images for SD card with ROS already installed, and that is a brilliant job they've done.

I had problems with those images, so I had to start my own tests.

Now, the very first obstacle was the processing power of the RPI, so, like many, I decided to go virtual, using QEMU to install and compile everything.

The other "little problem" I ran into was, the default Debian ...