Set up ROS 2 and Device Connect on Arm Linux

Before you begin

Run every command on your Arm-based Linux machine. Ensure that you’re using Ubuntu 22.04 or later on an aarch64 host, such as a Raspberry Pi 5 or an Arm-based cloud instance.

Confirm the architecture:

    

        
        
uname -m

    

The expected output is:

    

        
        aarch64

        
    

By the end of setup, you’ll have the following:

• A ROS 2 Humble container publishing a demo topic
• A Python virtual environment with the Device Connect packages
• The ros2-device-connect adapter cloned and ready to run

Install Docker

The adapter talks to ROS 2 through Docker, so you need Docker Engine. To install Docker Engine, follow the Docker Engine install guide , including the step that adds your user to the docker group. The adapter runs docker exec as your user, so Docker needs to work without sudo.

Verify that Docker is installed and that you can connect to the Docker daemon without sudo:

    

        
        
docker version

    

The command should display version information for both the Docker client and server.

Start a ROS 2 container

You don’t need to install ROS 2 on the host. The official ros:humble image is multi-architecture, so Docker pulls the arm64 variant automatically. If you prefer a native install, see the ROS 2 install guide .

Start a long-running container named ros2_test:

    

        
        
docker run -d --name ros2_test ros:humble tail -f /dev/null

    

The tail -f /dev/null command keeps the container alive so that you can run ROS 2 commands inside it with docker exec. Start a demo publisher that sends a std_msgs/msg/String message on the /chatter topic once per second:

    

        
        
docker exec -d ros2_test bash -lc 'source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash && ros2 topic pub -r 1 /chatter std_msgs/msg/String "{data: hello}"'

    

Check that the topic is being published:

    

        
        
docker exec ros2_test bash -lc 'source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash && ros2 node list && ros2 topic list'

    

The output lists the ROS 2 topics:

    

        
        /chatter
/parameter_events
/rosout

        
    

The node list is empty because ros2 topic pub runs as a hidden node. The container now stands in for a real robot’s ROS 2 stack.

Create the workspace

The adapter’s launch scripts expect a single project directory that holds the adapter repository and a Python virtual environment named .venv. Create the directory and clone both the adapter and the Device Connect source:

    

        
        
mkdir -p ~/device_connect
cd ~/device_connect
git clone --branch ros2_dc_lp https://github.com/odincodeshen/ros2-device-connect.git
git clone https://github.com/arm/device-connect.git

    

The adapter is cloned at the ros2_dc_lp tag, which is the version that the Learning Path was tested with.

Install uv and the Device Connect packages

Install uv to create the Python environment:

    

        
        
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
uv --version

    

Create a Python virtual environment in the project directory, and install the Device Connect edge SDK and agent tools from the cloned source:

    

        
        
cd ~/device_connect
uv venv --python 3.12 .venv
VIRTUAL_ENV=.venv uv pip install \
  -e device-connect/packages/device-connect-edge \
  -e device-connect/packages/device-connect-agent-tools

    

The device-connect-edge package is the device runtime that the adapter runs on. The device-connect-agent-tools package is the client that you’ll use to discover the adapter and call its RPCs.

Verify that both packages import:

    

        
        
.venv/bin/python -c "import device_connect_edge, device_connect_agent_tools; print('Device Connect OK')"

    

The expected output is:

    

        
        Device Connect OK

        
    

Your workspace now looks like this:

    

        
        ~/device_connect/
├── .venv/                  # Python environment with Device Connect
├── device-connect/         # Device Connect SDK source
└── ros2-device-connect/    # ROS 2 adapter

        
    

What you’ve accomplished and what’s next

You’ve installed Docker and started a ROS 2 Humble container publishing on /chatter. You’ve also created a Python environment with the Device Connect packages next to the ros2-device-connect adapter.

Next, you’ll see how the adapter code works, start it in device-to-device mode, and query the ROS 2 container through Device Connect.