Ruffin,

We're actively using Docker in the new build farm that we are currently
developing [1]. I think it's awesome and could even be really good for
deploying ROS onto robots in the future. But I wonder, for end users who
want to use graphical tools like rviz and rqt does Docker provide a good
option for that? I've been watching some work like
https://github.com/rogaha/docker-desktop which seems to imply it can , but
I haven't tried running things like rviz in Docker before.

I think having official Docker images for the core, non-graphical parts of
ROS make total sense, and maybe more if the graphical tools also end up
working with Docker too.

--

[1] http://wiki.ros.org/buildfarm

On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 8:50 PM, Ruffin White <roxfoxpox@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I wanted to ask the community and the admins if there would be any
> interest in making an official ROS repo for the Docker Hub Registry
> <https://registry.hub.docker.com/>?
>
> I've been using ROS with Docker <https://www.docker.com/> for a while
> now, and I've found it really helpful for my ROS projects. Learning how to
> use Linux containers takes a bit of a learning curve but once you get a
> hang of it, its like you can't stop thinking inside the container
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_outside_the_box>.
>
> So I've been using it as development environment tool as well as a
> platform for sharing working demos, as well as the a perfect tool for
> deploying apps to robots. For one of my research lab's projects,
> OmniMapper
> <http://www.cogrob.org/2014/05/omnimapper-modular-multimodal-mapping-framework/>, I've
> been documenting my progress in our github wiki pages. I made a docker
> image for the demo, allowing novices users to skip much of the tedious
> build and dependency processes, and get straight to running and playing
> with the project, as I explain in this tutorial
> <https://github.com/CognitiveRobotics/omnimapper/wiki/Tutorial-%7C-OmniMapper-&-Docker>
> .
>
> I have to say, I'm not the first to do this, it seem to be trending here
> and there, so just to cite a few:
>
>    - Gernot Klingler <http://gernotklingler.com/blog/> and his a detailed
>    post: How docker replaced my virtual machines and chroots
>    <http://gernotklingler.com/blog/docker-replaced-virtual-machines-chroots/>,
>    a guide in how to enable a container to connect to an x-server and
>    graphical hardware acceleration.
>    - opencog <https://github.com/opencog> with examples
>    <https://github.com/opencog/ros> in the use of Docker for research and
>    collaboration within the robotics community.
>    - quantumobject / docker-ros-base
>    <https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/quantumobject/docker-ros-base/>
>
> This sort of reminds me how I got into using ROS when first playing with
> it in virtual machines, like these ones
> <http://nootrix.com/2014/09/ros-indigo-virtual-machine/>, way back when.
> But know I can get bare metal performance, mount any arbitrary directories
> or hardware from my host, and keep my images tiny on disk. Plus, I get to
> pick any modern Linux distro to use as a host, not just Ubuntu.
>
> So I've followed the Guidelines for Creating and Documenting Official
> Repositories <https://docs.docker.com/docker-hub/official_repos/>, and
> have a few proposed images for both Indigo and Hydro. I have a fork of
> rosdistro <https://github.com/ruffsl/rosdistro> with the necessary
> Dockerfiles (just my first though on where to pull request them into), and
> a fork of docker-library/docs <https://github.com/ruffsl/docs> with the
> appropriate entry for ROS image conforming to the registry's standards.
>
> I can contact the Docker Hub admins to get the project added, I just
> wanted to get in touch with the admins first and get the community's
> blessing.
>
> Feedback welcome!
>
> Ruffin
>
> _______________________________________________
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> ros-users@lists.ros.org
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>
>


-- 
William Woodall
ROS Development Team
william@osrfoundation.org
http://wjwwood.io/