RoboRIO Package Installer¶

Note

This is not the RobotPy installation guide, see Robot Installation if you’re looking for that!

Most FRC robots are not placed on networks that have access to the internet, particularly at competition arenas. The RobotPy installer is designed for this type of ‘two-phase’ operation – with individual steps for downloading and installing packages separately.

The RobotPy installer supports downloading external packages from the python package repository (pypi) via pip, and installing those packages onto the robot. We cannot make any guarantees about the quality of external packages, so use them at your own risk.

Note

If your robot is on a network that has internet access, then you can manually install packages via opkg or pip. However, if you use the RobotPy installer to install packages, then you can easily reinstall them on your robot in the case you need to reimage it.

If you choose to install packages manually via pip, keep in mind that when powered off, your roboRIO does not keep track of the correct date, and as a result pip may fail with an SSL related error message. To set the date, you can either:

Set the date via the web interface
You can login to your roboRIO via SSH, and set the date via the date command:
```
date -s "2015-01-03 00:00:00"
```

Each of the commands supports various options, which you can read about by invoking the –help command.

Installing/Executing the installer¶

Note

The installer is included when you install the RobotPy meta package, so if you installed that then you likely already have it

To install/use the installer, you must have Python 3.6+ installed. You should install the installer via pip.

Windows

py -3 -m pip install robotpy-installer

Linux/macOS

pip3 install robotpy-installer

To upgrade the installed version of the installer, you need to add the -U flag to pip.

Executing the installer¶

Once you have the installer program installed, to execute the installer do:

Windows

py -3 -m robotpy_installer [command..]

Linux/macOS

robotpy-installer [command..]

Python¶

These commands allow you to install/upgrade Python on your roboRIO. Once Python is installed, it’s likely that you won’t need to upgrade it.

download-python¶

Windows

py -3 -m robotpy_installer download-python

Linux/macOS

robotpy-installer download-python

This will update the cached Python package to the newest versions available.

install-python¶

Windows

py -3 -m robotpy_installer install-python

Linux/macOS

robotpy-installer install-python

Note

You must already have Python downloaded (via download-python), or this command will fail.

Python Packages¶

If you want to use a python package hosted on Pypi in your robot code, these commands allow you to easily download and install those packages.

Note

If you need Python packages that require compilation, the RobotPy project distributes some commonly used packages. See the roborio-wheels project for more details.

download¶

Windows

py -3 -m robotpy_installer download PACKAGE [PACKAGE ..]

Linux/macOS

robotpy-installer download PACKAGE [PACKAGE ..]

Specify python package(s) to download, similar to what you would pass the ‘pip install’ command. This command does not install files on the robot, and must be executed from a computer with internet access.

You can run this command multiple times, and files will not be removed from the download cache.

You can also use a requirements.txt file to specify which packages should be downloaded.

Windows

py -3 -m robotpy_installer download -r requirements.txt

Linux/macOS

robotpy-installer download -r requirements.txt

install¶

Windows

py -3 -m robotpy_installer install PACKAGE [PACKAGE ..]

Linux/macOS

robotpy-installer install PACKAGE [PACKAGE ..]

Copies python packages over to the roboRIO, and installs them. If the package already has been installed, it will be reinstalled.

You can also use a requirements.txt file to specify which packages should be downloaded.

Windows

py -3 -m robotpy_installer install -r requirements.txt

Linux/macOS

robotpy-installer install -r requirements.txt

Warning

The ‘install’ command will only install packages that have been downloaded using the ‘download’ command, or packages that are on the robot’s pypi cache.

Warning

If your robot does not have a python3 interpeter installed, this command will fail. Run the install-python command first.