Chico3

The black 17" Tsunami laptop, dubbed chico3, is used as an interface to control to the iCub robot and to launch demos.

Old information can be consulted at Chico3 laptop machine configuration/Archive.

Specifications

• processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (2 x P8600 @ 2.40 GHz)
• memory: 3GB
• graphics card: Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT with 512MB of memory

Setup

chico3 currently runs Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Desktop 'Lucid Lynx', 64-bit.

Operating system installation

In general, follow the guidelines at VisLab machines configuration. Below are some special notes.

Network

• configure the internet connection with the following parameters (see VisLab machines configuration#Network_configuration if in doubt) :

Address	Netmask	Gateway	DNS Servers	notes
10.10.1.53	255.255.255.0	10.10.1.254	10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2	for when we connect to the iCub switch
10.0.3.88	255.255.0.0	10.0.0.254	10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2	for when we connect to the rest of ISR

• added the following lines to /etc/hosts, to enable running commands like: ping cortex1 (if we don't make this change, we can still easily access other machines, but with .visnet attached at the end of their names, see VisLab network for details)

  10.10.1.50	pc104
  10.10.1.51	icubsrv
  10.10.1.53	chico3
  10.10.1.1	cortex1
  10.10.1.2	cortex2
  10.10.1.3	cortex3
  10.10.1.4	cortex4
  10.10.1.5	cortex5
  10.10.1.6	cortex6
  10.10.1.41	icubbrain1
  10.10.1.42	icubbrain2

Additional software

In general, stick to the guidelines at VisLab machines configuration for essential packages and environment variables. In addition, install the software listed below.

  sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev libgtk2.0-dev libgtkmm-2.4-dev libglademm-2.4-dev python-tk libqt3-mt-dev vlc

Nvidia graphics card

Enable the Nvidia proprietary drivers to obtain a decent screen resolution.

In order to have multi-screen external monitor support for beamers,

  sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings
  sudo nvidia-settings

In the 'X Server Display Configuration' menu, select the 'Separate X screen' configuration. Then, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf (make a backup first) by doing the following under Section 'ServerLayout': switch the Screen 0 with the Screen 1 strings. Restart the xserver and enter nvidia-settings again, you will get some errors in the terminal because of the manual change, furthermore you will now see the correct screen numbering. To resolve the error in the configuration press "save X configuration file". Restart xserver, everything should be ok.

YARP and iCub

Follow the instructions on the RobotCub software article. For compilation, do not use sudo make install but simply make (we have configured the PATH variable to find the latest compiled binaries, and we do not want two copies of the same thing on the system).

• Custom yarp2 configuration

  CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE Release
  CREATE_GUIS
  CREATE_LIB_MATH
  CREATE_DEVICE_LIBRARY_MODULES

  ENABLE_yarpmod_opencv_grabber

• Custom iCub configuration

  CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE Release
  ENABLE_icubmod_cartesiancontrollerclient # for Cartesian robotMotorGui
  ENABLE_icubmod_gazecontrollerclient

Customization

Passwordless connection to other machines

• set up passwordless log-in to the Cortex computers:

  # type the following commands on chico3:
  #
  # generate public and private keys. enter empty strings when prompted for various answers.
  ssh-keygen   
  #copy the public key you just generated to cortex1, on the user account you want to use there (e.g. icub).
  scp /home/icub/.ssh/id_rsa.pub icub@cortex1:   <-- be sure to write the colon ":" at the end
  #
  # log in as 'icub' to cortex1 and type the following commands there:
  ssh cortex1
  #add the public key to the authorized ones
  cat id_rsa.pub  >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys   
  #remove the id_rsa.pub file and log out
  rm id_rsa.pub
  exit
  exit
  #log in again to each cortex computer, to check that the process worked and they don't prompt for a password.
  #as of Oct. 2011, cortex[1-5] share the same disk; cortex6 is independent

• set up passwordless log-in to the iCubBrain server configuration computers: as above.

• set up passwordless log-in to chico3 (this very machine - needed by the Cluster Manager): as above.

• set up passwordless log-in to pc104

Customization of GNOME

Add buttons to the panel/bar at the top of the screen, to conveniently open terminals and file managers on remote machines. The top bar should look something like this when you're done:

Pick the images you like and turn them into 48x48pixel GIF images with GIMP or a similar program.

Example for the button to open the gnome-terminal on cortex1:

  right click on the panel and select "add to panel"
  select "custom application launcher"
  click on the icon and select the directory where your icons are, typically ~/Pictures/
  click on open, then select the picture for this particular button
  write in the field "command": gnome-terminal --window-with-profile=cortex -e "ssh icub@cortex1 -X" # or icub@10.10.1.1, or icub@cortex1.visnet
  set the name to something like: ssh icub@cortex1

The profile specified (--window-with-profile=cortex) does not exist by default, you need to create it. These profiles are used to give terminals on different machines different colors (e.g. all terminals running in a cortex computer will be blue, terminals local to chico3 will be white, etc.). In order to create the "cortex" profile:

  open a terminal on, say, cortex1
  click on File, select "new profile" and name it "cortex". choose the colors. cortex windows usually are blue with white text, while pc104 windows are yellow with black text.

Adding a new terminal button

Example for the button to open the gnome-terminal on cortex1:

• right click on the panel and select "add to panel"
• select "custom application launcher"
• click on the icon and select the directory where your icons are, typically ~/Pictures/
• click on open, then select the picture for this particular button
• write this in the "command" field:

  gnome-terminal --window-with-profile=cortex -e "ssh icub@10.10.1.1 -X"

• set the name to something like: ssh icub@cortex1

Note about gnome-terminal profiles: the profile we have specified specified (--window-with-profile=cortex) does not exist by default, we need to create it. These profiles are used to give terminals on different machines different colors (e.g., all terminals running in a cortex computer will be blue, terminals local to chico2 will be white, etc.). To create the "cortex" profile do this:

• open a terminal on, say, cortex1
• click on File, select "new profile" and name it "cortex", then choose the colors
• cortex windows usually are blue background with white text, while pc104 windows are yellow with black text.

Nautilus buttons

For the buttons that start the file manager Nautilus on pc104 and on cortex (once again, all cortex computers share the same disk, so you need only one button for them) you should use these lines of code:

  nautilus sftp://icub@10.10.1.50/home/icub/
  nautilus sftp://icub@10.10.1.1/home/icub

After you are done browsing a remote machine disk with Nautilus, don't forget to unmount the volume (right-click the relevant icon on the desktop).

Desktop background

Last but not least, you can change the default Ubuntu desktop background to something fancier: