Docker_ws - Debian

General purpose docker workspaces to use Debian and developing inside a container.

Overview

Workspaces to build images with different systems with GUI support.

The build.bash and the run.bash files are used to automatically build and run the image. attach.bash can be used to connect to the same container created with devcontainer. To connect to the container created with run.bash you can use directly docker exec -it <container_name> bash

This repository is intended to be used as a base for other projects that require a base system and GUI support in Docker. Providing also the infrastructure for developing inside the container (devcontainer extension).

The overall idea is to clone the repository and add to .gitignore what you will insert. In this way you can keep track of the modification of the docker structure, while maintaining separate repositories for your works.

If you find this useful, you can cite this repository and/or me in your work.

Preliminaries

Install Docker Community Edition (ex Docker Engine). You can follow the installation method through apt. Note that it makes you verify the installation by running sudo docker run hello-world. It is better to avoid running this command with sudo and instead follow the post installation steps first and then run the command without sudo.

Follow the post-installation steps for Linux. This will allow you to run Docker without sudo.

You also would probably need Visual Studio Code and the Dev Containers extension

Usage

Clone the repository wherever you want on the system with recursive behavior(better to clone with linux for line endings, not tested with WSL but should work)

git clone --branch debian https://github.com/GiorgioSimonini/docker_ws

The docker base image and the ROS version can be changed by modifying the BASE_IMAGE and the BASE_TAG in the .devcontainer/docker-compose.yml.

The build.bash and the run.bash files are used to build and run the image from terminal. attach.bash can be used to connect from the terminal to the same container created with DevContaiers extension.

There are two different ways to use this framework:

• Using DevContainers that creates a persistent container with name debian_dev in which all the installations persists since a new build. This scenario is usefull while you are developing. However, the changes will be lost when you recreate the container, so pay attention.
• Using the terminal, each container created in this way is erased upon exit and have no persistency. This is better for running demos or execute commands.

Use with vscode

Just open the main folder with vscode and click on Reopen in Container when asked. Or, if you ave already a running container, click on Attach to Running Container.. int the DevContainers extension.

Use with terminal

Build the docker image:

./build.bash

Run the container:

./run.bash

Troubleshooting

Authors

Giorgio Simonini

Acknowledgments

• Davide De Benedittis
• Docker best practises