x11docker-gnome

A collection of Dockerfiles for building images with different versions of GNOME. These images can then be run with x11docker. Fedora images are used as a base, since versions of Fedora conveniently correspond to each stable version of GNOME.

Makefile allows building, pushing, pulling, and running of each image. (Running in this case is just invoking /bin/bash---for starting with x11docker, see run-gnome-desktop.sh.)

The recommended workflow is as follows:

# Pull images from the GitHub Container Registry:
#   ghcr.io/jkitching/gnome-shell-XYZ
make pull gnome-shell-39 gnome-shell-40  # pull individual images
make pull all                            # pull all images

# Copy the run shell script template
cp run-gnome-desktop.sh.template run-gnome-desktop.sh
chmod +x run-gnome-desktop.sh

# Make modifications as necessary
vim run-gnome-desktop.sh

# Start GNOME container with x11docker
./run-gnome-desktop.sh gnome-shell-39

For more details on how it all works, check out this blog post: GNOME development with x11docker containers.

Images are rebuilt weekly on CI and published to ghcr.io/jkitching/gnome-shell-XYZ.

Wayland, X11, and GNOME 49+

GNOME 49 removed the X11 session upstream, and 50+ is Wayland-only everywhere. The gnome-shell-49 and gnome-shell-50 images are stock Wayland-only builds; gnome-shell-49-x11 restores an X11 session on 49 via the frantisekz/GNOME-X11 COPR for X-based x11docker modes---49 is the last version where that is possible. (Fedora also publishes its official base images to quay.io as of 44, which is why gnome-shell-50 builds from quay.io/fedora/fedora:44.)

Headless / CI use

The images also work with no X server at all: gnome-shell --headless --virtual-monitor 1920x1080 runs a full compositor whose output can be captured through org.gnome.Mutter.ScreenCast and PipeWire, and whose settings and extensions can be driven over D-Bus. This makes the images useful as CI bases for testing GNOME Shell extensions against multiple GNOME versions---see soft-brightness-plus (test/e2e/) for a working example.

Included packages

• gnome-terminal
• gnome-extensions-app (separate package from GNOME 3.36 onward)
• nautilus for file browsing
• xdg-user-dirs creates directories required for taking screenshots
• mesa-dri-drivers and mesa-libGL for GPU acceleration
• Xephyr for displaying GDM login screen
• xdotool and wmctrl for programmatically controlling X11
• iproute for ss tool used to query TCP and other sockets (e.g. find open ports)
• gnome-tour is removed, because we don't want a tour