ROS2_MSYS2_MINGW64

ROS2 MSYS2/MINGW64 port [Windows]

This is a Work In Progress.

The reasons :
I have had a look at actual windows port and it does not fit what I need and maybe some of other users.

When I want to use ROS2, I will setup a software, almost ready to use.

Since ROS has been developped mainly on unix environment, it sounds to me natural to use a similar environment to build it for windows.

Then, when it comes to use it most of utilities need python and their dependencies .
Most of python utilities should be packaged as executable and ready to use in windows environment.

Preliminary

Environment development in win10 The following steps must have been setted up before proceding

• Install a clean MSYS2 system.
• Run MINGW64 MSYS2 shell

enabling symlinks in msys2 environment

by default symlinks are not enabled in msys2 environment You must at first enable it

This work is targetting ros2 rolling version

setup a ros2 source workspace

mkdir ros2_rolling
cd ~/ros2_rolling
mv -i ros2.repos ros2.repos.old
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros2/ros2/master/ros2.repos

Workarounds to achieve the job

colcon

In order to be able to use colcon software to build package , it must be able to recognize bash shell in MSYS2 instead of powershell.
colcon_bash and colcon_powershell packages must be patched.

Building with colcon

Once colcon has been patched, you can build packages using next commandline:

colcon --build --cmake-args -G"MSYS Makefiles"

references