# Easy way to distribute an instance of Ubuntu w/ ROS to students

**URL:** <https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/easy-way-to-distribute-an-instance-of-ubuntu-w-ros-to-students/31824>\
**Category:** Training & Education\
**Tags:** ros, education\
**Created:** [June 7, 2023, 8:12pm UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/easy-way-to-distribute-an-instance-of-ubuntu-w-ros-to-students/31824 "2023-06-07T20:12:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ruffsl](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.openrobotics.org/ruffsl/32/83_2.png) [@ruffsl](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/ruffsl)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2023, 12:53am UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/easy-way-to-distribute-an-instance-of-ubuntu-w-ros-to-students/31824/2 "2023-06-08T00:53:49Z")

</div>

> [@damulaval](#):
>
> We tried sharing a ROS pre-installed Virtual Machine with the students, yet it’s kinda cumbersome for them as they don’t all have enough knowledge to run a VM, no matter the OS they are running on their computer.

You could use Dev Containers from a selfhosted or cloud based service to circumvent the logistics with local OS/VM setup:

> **[Repeatable, Reproducible, and now Accessible! ROS Development via Dev Containers](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/repeatable-reproducible-and-now-accessible-ros-development-via-dev-containers/31398)**
>
> Hey folks, I’d like to share a short teaser video demonstrating what I have been working on recently. https://youtu.be/aEowtvmoqUM I have been developing a template for open-source educational platforms to teach robotics to young and...

If you need better bandwidth/latency for visualizations than your network can provide, then you could install something like docker desktop on local hardware, that is: if you have the time to walk students through a docker desktop install, and that students have enough local compute power to run your software stack.

> [@damulaval](#):
>
> tailored for showing big point clouds (at least 500k points) in a RViz instance.

Is that a static point cloud, is it colorized with a certain bit depth, or does that have some kind of update rate? I’d recommend doing some napkin math on what kind of bandwidth you’d need as a base line if you wanted to send them over the wire and render them from something like Foxglove Studio instead. For example, it may be worth down sampling point clouds remotely before visualizing them over a local client, or sticking with your current approach using remote desktop or VNC to render the visualizations on the same remote compute instance, then stream the frame buffer of something liked rviz instead.

Something like Moonlight and Sunshine could provide a more responsive, while still FOSS, remote desktop experience, but would be a more involved setup compared to a conventional VNC server/client deployment.

> **[Moonlight Game Streaming: Play Your PC Games Remotely](https://moonlight-stream.org/)**
>
> Moonlight allows you to play your PC games remotely on almost any device.

[https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine](https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine)

---

_[View the full topic](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/easy-way-to-distribute-an-instance-of-ubuntu-w-ros-to-students/31824)._