ROS Distribution

A versioned, fixed bundle of ROS core libraries and packages, with each release tied to a specific Ubuntu version.

A ROS distribution is a set of ROS core libraries and packages that have been tested together and pinned to fixed versions, each with its own codename, released in alphabetical order. ROS 2 ships a new distribution every May; even-numbered years get a Long-Term Support (LTS) release, supported for about five years, each tied to the Ubuntu LTS current at the time: Humble pairs with 22.04, Jazzy with 24.04, Kilted Kaiju is a non-LTS release, and 2026's Lyrical Luth is the newest LTS; there's also a continuously updated Rolling development distribution. Noetic, the final ROS 1 release, reached end of maintenance in May 2025. Picking a distribution means making sure the OS, the ROS release, and any third-party packages all line up — a mismatch is a frequent source of dependency failures — and a new project usually goes with whichever LTS is current.

ExampleTo install ROS 2 Humble, first install Ubuntu 22.04, then activate the environment with source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash.

Also called

Noetic, Humble, Jazzy, Kilted, Lyrical Luth, ROS release

Related

Robot Operating System 2 · Robot Operating System · Ubuntu Linux · FishROS One-Click Installer · ros1_bridge

Sources

ROS 2 Documentation: Distributions
ROS Wiki: Distributions

As of

2026-09