Tools with GUI

By default, tools with Graphical User Interface (GUI) cannot be used in containers, because there is no graphical server. However, there are multiple alternatives for making an X11 or Wayland server visible to the container. gh:mviereck/x11docker and gh:mviereck/runx are full-featured helper scripts for setting up the environment and running GUI applications and desktop environments in OCI containers. GNU/Linux and Windows hosts are supported, and security related options are provided (such as cookie authentication). Users of GTKWave, KLayout, nextpnr and other tools will likely want to try x11docker (and runx).

Block diagram of the OSVB

Fig. 1 Execution of KLayout in a container on Windows 10 (MSYS2/MINGW64) with gh:mviereck/x11docker, gh:mviereck/runx and VcxSrv.