ROS installation with pure Debian Packages + some Source Packages

[Jörg <jkur+debian-science@corsario.org>]

Hello,

i'm trying to use the Debian ROS Packages for some robotic application. Still in
the early beginning stage i wonder what would be the preferred and working
method to use ROS with the Debian Packages only.

What i'm trying to do:
 - use *only* official Debian Packages (on buster) for ROS
 - install extra packages from *source* e.g.:
    - rviz_visual_tools
    - universal_robots
    - ur_modern_river
    - gazebo*
    - iai_kinect*
    - (plus deps)


This works more or less, because i can "git clone" most of these packages from
source and compile them.

But for bigger packages this is to complex. For example i would like to use
MoveIt! But i haven't been able to even compile it. Debian libraries and the
source code don't use the same versions of headers, etc.

I tried "lunar" and "kinetic" branches for the source repositories where
available.


Maybe i could install from source with rosinstall_generator and wstool, but then
i wouldn't get the benefit of the maintained Debian Packages.

It's very difficult to find documentation on plain Debian. Most of the time
people seem to use the packages.ros.org repositories. This hasn't worked for me
either, because of some very strange display errors in Gazebo.


Can someone point me in the right direction? What would be the preferred way to
get a running ROS-Stack on Debian (buster)? Of what use are rosdep,
rosinstall, wstool in plain Debian? Are they even useful?


Best regards,
   Jörg