embedded linux - Install things on Pepper

Question

How would I install things on Pepper, since I don't know what package manager it uses. I usually use apt on my Ubuntu machine and want to install some packages on Pepper. I'm not sure what package manager Pepper has (if any) and want to install some packages, but also only know the name of the package using apt (not sure if the package name is the same on other package managers). And if possible, would I be able to install apt on Pepper. Thanks.

Note: From the research I've done, Pepper is using NaoQi which is based off Gentoo which uses portage.

Answer 1

You don't have root access on Pepper, which limits what you can install (and apt isn't on the robot anyway).

Some possibilities:

• Include your content in Choregraphe projects - when you install a package, the whole directory structure is installed (more exactly, what's listed in the .pml); so you can put arbitrary files on your robot, and you can usually include whatever dependencies your code needs.
• Install python packages with pip.

In NAOqi 2.5, a slightly older version of pip is installed that will not always work out of the box; I recommend upgrading it:

pip install --user --upgrade pip

... you can then use the upgraded pip to install other packages, using the upgraded pip, and always --user:

/home/nao/.local/bin/pip install --user whatever-package-you-need

Note however that if you do this and use your packages in your code running on Pepper, that code won't work on other robots until you do pip on them, which is why I usually only do this for tests; for production code I prefer packaging all dependencies in my app's package.