GUI Application Development Environment in a Container

July 25, 2025 · View on GitHub

This repository provides Dockerfiles and launch scripts to build and run Docker images for GUI application development.

archlinux-gui-devel

A comprehensive development environment for GUI applications

This image includes popular programming languages (C/C++, Rust, Go, Java, Python, Node.js) and essential tools (GNU Make, CMake, GDB, Rustup, npm, Maven, pipx), offering a complete setup for GUI application development.

Based on archlinux-gui, this image lets you develop and debug GUI applications directly inside the container. Use the start-docker-archlinux-gui-devel.sh script for easy startup.

Why develop GUI applications in a container? To keep your host system clean and organized! :D

For detailed instructions on running GUI applications in containers, see How to run GUI applications directly in containers.

The container also starts an SSH server on port 3333. The default root password is 123456. You can connect using VSCode Remote Development over SSH to work with familiar tools.

archlinux-gui-vscode

Run VSCode directly in a container—no installation required

This image extends archlinux-gui-devel by adding the VSCode application.

Installing VSCode can be difficult on some Linux distributions (e.g., NixOS). With Docker or Podman (recommended), you can build the archlinux-gui-vscode image using build-docker-image-archlinux-gui-vscode.sh and run it with start-docker-archlinux-gui-vscode.sh. This approach avoids installing or configuring software on your host system.

archlinux-gui-clion

A demonstration image with CLion pre-installed

This image extends archlinux-gui-devel by adding the JetBrains CLion IDE. It serves as a demonstration, similar to archlinux-gui-vscode.

archlinux-gui-rustrover

A demonstration image with RustRover pre-installed

This image similar to archlinux-gui-clion, but it includes RustRover, a JetBrains IDE for Rust development.

Available Images

It is recommended to build the images from the Dockerfiles in this repository, as the images are large. However, pre-built images are also available on Docker Hub: