[ros-users] [Discourse.ros.org] [General] Development setup for multiple ROS distros?

[ruffsl]

Oh, this thread slipped past me. Thanks for the shout out @esteve.

[quote="esteve, post:9, topic:1280"]
is https://github.com/NVIDIA/nvidia-docker/issues/11 still relevant or it's just a problem on my end?
[/quote]

I've been using both nvidia and intel graphics for OpenGL dependent ROS apps inside containers just fine for the past year or more. I just tested both nvidia and intel methods now as described in the [ros wiki you linked](http://wiki.ros.org/docker/Tutorials/Hardware%20Acceleration), and rviz and gazebo render just fine with both discrete and integrated graphic cards that I have. Rviz is buttery smooth for both intel and nvidia, however qzclient only has a decent frame rate on my 4K host's screen if I either switch to my discrete nvidia card, or shrink the ogre3d preview to something smaller than fullscreen. Also note, that when you start gazebo for the first time in a fresh container, it'll take a bit before you see the rendered preview, as I think gazebo is initializing (downloading?) some files on first startup, so perhaps best to make a volume for that to make them persistent between runs and save time.

Here is my setup for reference:

``` bash
$ uname -a
Linux dox 4.9.0-040900-generic #201612111631 SMP Sun Dec 11 21:33:00 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
Release:	16.04
Codename:	xenial

$ lspci -v | less
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Skylake Integrated Graphics (rev 06) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        DeviceName:  Onboard IGD
        Subsystem: Dell Skylake Integrated Graphics
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 127
        Memory at db000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at 70000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        I/O ports at f000 [size=64]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: i915
        Kernel modules: i915
...
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107M [GeForce GTX 960M] (rev a2)
        Subsystem: Dell GM107M [GeForce GTX 960M]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 138
        Memory at dc000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
        I/O ports at e000 [size=128]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at dd000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: nvidia
        Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau, nvidia_375_drm, nvidia_375

$ nvidia-docker run --rm nvidia/cuda nvidia-smi
Wed Mar 15 05:38:39 2017       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 375.26                 Driver Version: 375.26                    |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 960M    Off  | 0000:01:00.0     Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   52C    P0    N/A /  N/A |   1433MiB /  2002MiB |      6%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

$ nvidia-docker -v
Docker version 1.13.1, build 092cba3
```
The latest kernel/nvidia driver/plugin are not really necessary, I recall everything working fine stock trusty.

One thing I'd like to try and do is create a command line tool and bootstraps a development container, mounting your source workspaces, attaches devices and display/audio unix sockets, maintains your user permissions, attach containers to host's subnets, etc. Sort of like parts done with docker-browser-box, but only more ROS focused. I wonder if I go searching again if I'd find another project already doing this for general desktop applications.

https://github.com/sameersbn/docker-browser-box
 
If you'd like to dockerize other common CLI/GUI apps, I'd highly recommend checking out Jess Frazelle's collection of dockerfiles for desktop applications from android IDEs, virtualbox, wine, vlc, spotify, htop, ect:
https://github.com/jessfraz/dockerfiles






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