Okay, so I finally got around to messing with CARLA the other day. The goal? Just get it running – you know, “carla ok ko” style. Simple, right? …Well, almost.
First Steps: Downloading and Extracting
First thing I did was download the whole CARLA package. I grabbed the latest version (it was 0.9.13 when I did this, I think). It’s a pretty hefty download, so I made some coffee while it was going. Once it finished, I extracted the file. It was a .*, so just a matter of right-click and extract. Easy peasy.
The Infamous “./*”
Next up, the moment of truth. I navigated to the extracted folder in my terminal, found that file, and ran it. I held my breath… and, of course, something went wrong. A bunch of errors about missing dependencies popped up. Classic.
Dependency Hell
This is where things got a little messy. I spent a good chunk of time installing a whole list of things. I remember libomp, clang, and a bunch of other stuff I’d never heard of. Honestly, I just blindly followed some forum posts and Stack Overflow answers, copy-pasting commands into the terminal. Don’t judge me, we’ve all been there.
Making it Work
After what felt like an eternity of package management, I tried running again. This time… success! Well, sort of. The CARLA window popped up, but it was just a black screen. Progress, I guess?
Python to the Rescue
Turns out, I needed to actually run one of the example Python scripts to get something to show up. I went into the PythonAPI/examples folder and ran python3 manual_*. And boom! There it was. A car, on a road, in a simulated town. Finally!
The “KO” Part
I played around with the manual controls for a bit – driving the car around, crashing into things (accidentally, of course). It was pretty cool. Definitely felt like a “KO” moment after all that setup hassle. So yeah, “carla ok ko” achieved!
My Final Verdict
- Downloading & Extracting: Super easy.
- Running Carla: Errors at first.
- Dependencies: Painful, but manageable.
- Seeing the Simulation: Took some extra Python.
- Overall: Worth it!
It was a bit of a journey, but I finally got CARLA up and running. It definitely wasn’t plug-and-play, but hey, that’s part of the fun, right? Now, to actually do something interesting with it…
