x11docker/xserver repository overview

⁠X servers in container for use with x11docker

This Dockerfile provides a set of X servers that can be used by x11docker⁠. The resulting image x11docker/xserver can be used automatically to run the supported X servers in a container. This allows to isolate the X servers from host and to reduce x11docker dependencies on host.

Pull the image from docker hub with docker pull x11docker/xserver.

Or build image yourself with: x11docker --build x11docker/xserver The build takes a while because nxagent is built from source.

This image supports all x11docker X server options and also contains several tools to reduce x11docker dependencies on host. The image includes X servers and Wayland compositors kwin_wayland, nxagent, Xephyr, Xorg, Xvfb, weston, Xwayland and xpra.

Supported x11docker options (formerly host only) for use with image x11docker/xserver:

• --kwin
• --nxagent
• --weston
• --weston-xwayland
• --xephyr
• --xorg
• --xpra
• --xpra-xwayland
• --xvfb
• --xwayland

New options that depend on image x11docker/xserver and xpra on host:

• --xpra2
• --xpra2-xwayland

--xpra2 and --xpra2-xwayland run X server and xpra server in container, but xpra client on host. This should provide the best possible combination of security and performance for xpra.

⁠GPU support

⁠Open source MESA drivers

The image contains the free open source MESA drivers. No setup is needed if you use MESA drivers on host.

⁠NVIDIA driver

If you have closed source NVIDIA driver installed on host, image x11docker/xserver needs the same driver version inside for hardware acceleration. However, this only makes sense if your driver version is >=470.x as older ones do not support the accelerated X server setups of this image.

You have two possibilities:

⁠Automated install on every container startup

Provide an NVIDIA driver installer file at ~/.local/share/x11docker. x11docker will install the driver on every startup of x11docker/xserver. This will slow down container startup. Compare x11docker wiki: Automated install of NVIDIA driver during container startup⁠.

⁠Build x11docker/xserver based on x11docker/nvidia-base

• Create an image x11docker/nvidia-base. A script for this is provided at x11docker wiki: NVIDIA driver base image⁠.
• In Dockerfile for x11docker/xserver change FROM debian:bullseye to FROM x11docker/nvidia-base and build image x11docker/xserver with this Dockerfile.

Note that this image will only work with the NVIDIA driver version of your host and is not portable.