ROS 2 Distributions and Why This Course Uses Jazzy

ROS 2 changes over time.

The project publishes named distributions, usually called distros.

That means an installation command, package version, feature, or tutorial written for one ROS 2 distro is not automatically the correct instruction for another.

Our target is fixed

This course uses:

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble)
ROS 2 Jazzy Jalisco
binary/deb installation
bash

The pinned Jazzy installation documentation states that ROS 2 Jazzy deb packages are available for Ubuntu Noble 24.04.

That is why this course does not tell you to randomly substitute Humble, Rolling, or another distro into commands.

Why not Rolling?

Rolling is valuable for current ROS 2 development and documentation work.

It also changes continuously.

For a beginner course, that moving target creates unnecessary failure modes:

student command
  ≠ current package
  ≠ tutorial screenshot
  ≠ installed distro

Jazzy gives us a stable course target.

Your distro is part of your evidence

After installation, you will verify the environment with variables such as:

printenv | grep -i ROS

and expect evidence including:

ROS_VERSION=2
ROS_DISTRO=jazzy

Do not assume the distro because a folder happens to exist.

Inspect it.

Version mismatch scenario

A classmate copies a command from a Rolling tutorial. Their machine is running Jazzy. The package or option is missing.

Bad diagnosis:

ROS is broken.

Better first question:

Is this instruction written for the ROS distribution actually installed on this machine?

Checkpoint

Write the four-line environment target for this course from memory:

OS:
Ubuntu release:
ROS distribution:
installation style: