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Can you delete workspace after building/INSTALLING from source ?

asked 2021-04-12 20:39:10 -0500

elpidiovaldez gravatar image

I built ROS from source on a Raspberry Pi 3 using Raspberry Pi OS (32 bit Raspbian Buster), using the command:

sudo src/catkin/bin/catkin_make_isolated --install -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release --install-space /opt/ros/noetic -j1 -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3

Since I have installed to the normal directory where ROS would reside if I had installed it from the binary repository, can I safely delete the workspace and continue using ROS ? I experimented renaming the workspace and could still use roscd and roscore. Are there any problems which could show up later ?

I favour doing this to save space on the sd card, and also because catkin_make_isolated wants to rebuild everything even if only my own projects change (I could solve that with an overlay, but it seems cleaner just to lose the initial workspace).

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answered 2021-04-13 13:38:59 -0500

gvdhoorn gravatar image

Can you delete workspace after building/INSTALLING from source ?

the short answer would be: yes, you can delete the bootstrap workspace after you've ran catkin_make_isolated --install.

Are there any problems which could show up later ?

I don't know about problems per se, but not having your sources around will make it more difficult to Maintain[ing] [your] Source Checkout.

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Thanks for the reassurance. I deleted the directory and so far everything still works. It is convenient because now I don't need overlayed workspaces.

elpidiovaldez gravatar image elpidiovaldez  ( 2021-04-14 06:14:19 -0500 )edit

You're still executing source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash, aren't you?

With that command, you're essentially source-ing the install space of the underlay in /opt/ros/noetic.

There's nothing really special about the files in /opt/ros, it's the same structure as the install space in one of "your own" workspaces.

gvdhoorn gravatar image gvdhoorn  ( 2021-04-14 06:17:05 -0500 )edit

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Asked: 2021-04-12 20:39:10 -0500

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Last updated: Apr 13