ROS distribution compatibility with Ubuntu

From ROS.org "Distributions" wiki:

"A ROS distribution is a versioned set of ROS packages. These are akin to Linux distributions (e.g. Ubuntu). The purpose of the ROS distributions is to let developers work against a relatively stable codebase until they are ready to roll everything forward. Therefore once a distribution is released, we try to limit changes to bug fixes and non-breaking improvements for the core packages (every thing under ros-desktop-full). And generally that applies to the whole community, but for "higher" level packages, the rules are less strict, and so it falls to the maintainers of a given package to avoid breaking changes."

ROS is not strictly tied to Ubuntu-based operating systems; however, Ubuntu is the primarily supported operating system for ROS. "LTS" (long term support) distributions of ROS are synchronized with the LTS distributions of Ubuntu. To maximize compatibility, the distribution of ROS you install should match the version of Ubuntu you are running based on this list:

• Ubuntu 14.04.06 LTS (Trusty Tahr) --> ROS Indigo Igloo
• Ubuntu 16.04.7 LTS (Xenial Xerus) --> ROS Kinetic Kame
• Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS (Bionic Beaver) --> ROS Melodic Morenia
• Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa) --> ROS Noetic Ninjemys

There are intermediary (non LTS) distributions of ROS; however, these are only recommended for advanced users.

ROS is also compatible with alternative operating systems. These include Debian-based Linux operating systems (AMD64 and ARM64 variants) and Windows (AMD64 and ARM64 variants); however, Ubuntu is still the primary supported operating system and is recommended to minimize compatibility issues. When a new distribution of ROS is released, Ubuntu support typically comes first, followed by Debian and then Windows.