Installing Eyesim on Ubuntu 22.04!

Eyesim is a robot simulator that lets you program some robots, used in the lab assignments for some units in The University Of Western Australia, in a simulated environment. Here is a quick guide on how to setup Eyesim on your Ubuntu 22.04 device!

I used PopOS 22.04, which is an ubuntu-based distro so the steps should be the same.

Oh, and we will also cover how to add Eyesim to your search menu!

Note: I have heavily referred to roblab's official eyesim website and extends upon the instructions provided from there.

Steps:

1. Install X11 library using following command:

    sudo apt-get install libx11-dev
   

2. Download the latest Eyesim for Linux from here

   • Yes, the .tag.gz file.

3. Unarchive the .tar.gz file in your home/<your username> directory!

   • This is the directory that is accessed when you do cd ~.

   • So after unarchiving the zip into your home directory, you should have a home/<your username>/EyeSim/ directory!

4. Open a terminal inside of that EyeSim/ folder.

5. Modify the install.sh file with a text editor of your choice, and comment out lines 15.

   • But why Ash? Well, it is desireable for us to keep and copy the eyesimX folder to a location of our choice as it has example eyesim programs in C, C++ and python.

   • Also check line 11 to make sure that the location, where eye.py will be placed, is the correct location to put your own python modules.

     • If you're not using python3 or if you're using a python version manager such as pyenv, then that directory will be different. (ChatGPT can help you figure out that directory :P)

6. Execute the installation script by running sh install.sh

   • If it says something like

   •     install.sh: 18: cannot create /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf: Permission denied
     

     then just run sudo sh install.sh

   • Note: Don't do this with any random scripts! We have looked at the contents of this script so we can trust it. But still, just be sure to double check it to make sure there's no fishy commands!

7. Try running eyesim in your terminal. This should open up eyesim, along with a terminal!

8. Now to add eyesim to our applications menu (i.e. the place you can search for applications from):

   • Open your terminal in the EyeSim/ folder you made, and run pwd. Copy that path and paste it somewhere because you'll need it in a sec.

   • Create a new file called eyesim.desktop somewhere.

   • Add these contents to it (replacing <your copied path!> with the path you copied when you ran the pwd two steps ago):

       [Desktop Entry]
       Type=Application
       Name=EyeSim
       Exec=<your copied path!>/EyeSim
       Icon=<your copied path!>/EyeSim_Data/Resources/UnityPlayer.png
       Terminal=false
       Categories=Game;Simulation;
     

   • Run chmod +x /path/to/eyesim.desktop (e.g. if it's on your desktop then chmod +x ~/Desktop/eyesim.desktop)

   • Now copy that file to ~/.local/share/applications/

     • You can do that by

         cp path/to/eyesim.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/
       

   • Now log out of your machine and log back in.

9. You should be able to find Eyesim in your application launcher now! Give yourself a pat on the back :)

Let me know absolutely any of your thoughts and ideas down in the comments!