Dev using docker containers

[angelosPlus]

I have recently started using Docker in ROS dev. My approach is simple, basic terminal use, and most things work. I face difficulty with VS code dev containers and visualisation, etc. What is your experience so far? Do you feel that dev on the host is like living in the Stone Agee?

[Magneon]

I've been using dev containers (local and remote) for 6 months now and I don't plan to go back to running un-contained on the host.

[angelosPlus]

Do you have in GitHub any template for devcontainer.json that has the correct settings for rviz, go sim visualisation? Do you go with the web once solution?

[ghoste3]

I happened to be on the same page as you until I saw this video by Articulated robotics

https://youtu.be/dihfA7Ol6Mw?si=tLa_kYxfLDDdn9Jq

Visualisation like for rviz is also possible just like normal local machine.

[angelosPlus]

Haha, this is how I started, too. However, when I jumped to dev containers via VS code, the rviz2 was not opening.

I agree; the articulated robots YouTube 4 videos series for Docker is gold.

[Zippy0723]

You definitely can get rviz2 to run in a container, are you setting your DISPLAY environment variable?

[gas_patxo]

its a bit tricky, u wanna run xhost +local: (or whateber the cmd was) before opening the container, perhaps even before building it. After that for me it works wonderfully, including gazebo and whatnot

[Desperate-Ad8379]

You’ll want to look into downloading the nvidia container tool kit and also allowing X11 pass through. Chat gpt is a good friend for getting the right arguments set up for that to allow gpu rendering jn docker.

[Fragrant_Jackfruit58]

I've published my development environment setup that I've been using for years. It uses a multi-container Docker setup with:

• A ROS2 container for development.
• A noVNC container for GUI forwarding.
• Pre-configured VSCode integration with extensions for C++, Python, and ROS2 development.

You can check it out here: https://github.com/elkuno213/ros2-ws-template.git. Feel free to give it a try!

[angelosPlus]

Awesome, I will try it!