ROS has the ability to allow multiple computers to communicate and share nodes, topics, and services. In the case of TurtleBot, the netbook has limited capabilities for graphics applications, such as rviz. It is better to run rviz and other visualization software on a desktop computer or a powerful laptop, both of which will be called a remote computer here to distinguish it from the netbook that rides along with the TurtleBot.

The approach is to designate one computer in the network to run the ROS Master identified by the ROS_MASTER_URI variable and launch the roscore process from that computer. The choice is to set up TurtleBot's netbook as the Master since many applications of the TurtleBot require autonomous motion without the intervention of the remote computer.

Any other remote computer on the network will have its own IP address as the ROS_IP address but its ROS_MASTER_URI variable will be TurtletBot's netbook IP address.