The Clean-Terminal Startup Checklist

A clean terminal removes hidden assumptions.

Start there.

Concept flow

Troubleshoot ROS 2 from the last confirmed-good boundary

A clean-terminal workflow exposes hidden assumptions and turns each command into evidence about one layer.

1. HOSTprove Ubuntu and architecture
   source
2. BASE ROSprove Jazzy and ros2 CLI availability
   source
3. OVERLAYprove local package discovery
   launch
4. RUNNING GRAPHinspect nodes, topics, and interfaces
   locate
5. FIRST FAILURErepair the earliest unproven boundary

Base ROS check

cat /etc/os-release
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
echo $ROS_DISTRO
which ros2

Expected course target:

Ubuntu 24.04 / Noble
ROS_DISTRO=jazzy
ros2 executable discoverable

Overlay check

If using your workspace:

source ~/ros2_ws/install/local_setup.bash
ros2 pkg executables robotnix_pubsub

Launch

ros2 launch robotnix_pubsub student_system.launch.py

Inspect in another sourced terminal

ros2 node list
ros2 topic list -t
ros2 topic info <your_topic> --verbose

The point

A checklist is not mindless repetition if every command proves a specific boundary.

Write beside each command what it proves. If you cannot explain the command's purpose, the checklist is not yet yours.