This project aims to provide a lightweight and ready to use KDE development environment by wrapping the kdesrc-build tool in Docker.

This way, you can compile and work on the latest version of the KDE project and keep your main system clean of unwanted development packages.

You can run a KDE application on your current desktop by sharing your X server instance inside the Docker container

Moreover, you can run and try the entire Plasma Desktop in another tty !

• python >= 3.2
• docopt
• docker >= 1.5

Just choose a distro as a base system for the container (archlinux is recommended, as it has the latest dependencies), and run the script :

./run.py --base archlinux

The script will do the following operations :

• check for a Dockerfile-archlinux file
• create a dir under $HOME/kdebuild/archlinux to be mounted under /work
• build or update the Docker image archlinux-kdedev if necessary
• mount bashrc as a volume (/home/kdedev/.bashrc)
• mount kdesrc-buildrc as a volume (/home/kdedev/.kdesrc-buildrc)
• run the container
• run /bin/bash

You will find the kdesrc-build repository cloned in your home directory. You can run ./kdesrc-build/kdesrc-build to start the build.

To run an entire Plasma Desktop session, we need to create a new X server instance , running on a new tty, for example, tty8.

# startx -display :1 -- :1 vt8

Also you have to explicitly authorize access to allow clients inside the container to use this xserver instance :

# DISPLAY=':1' xhost +

Then, run the container and use the --display option to specify the right tty to be used by applications :

./run.py --base archlinux --display ':1'

Execute startkde from your install directory (which is /work by default)

Note that you should have build the workspace set first (kdesrc-build workspace)

Inside the container :

$ /work/install/bin/startplasma-x11

And the KDE desktop should be starting on tty8 !

Another method consist to run a Virtual FrameBuffer inside the container, as well as a VNC server to view it's content.

Run the environement :

./run.py --base archlinux 

Run the Xvfb server :

sudo Xvfb $DISPLAY +extension GLX +render -screen 0 1024x780x24 &

Run the VNC server :

sudo x11vnc -usepw -display $DISPLAY

Now you should inspect the container on the host

docker inspect <container name | ID>

and check for it's IP address:

"IPAddress": "172.17.0.10"

You can connect to the VNC server container-ip-address:5900 with a VNC client on the host !

Now you can run any applications, including startplasma-x11 !

Install Xephyr via package manager

Tune docker:

```sudo systemctl unmask docker.service```
```sudo systemctl unmask docker.socket```
```sudo systemctl restart docker.service```

Run Xephyr:

```Xephyr -screen 1024x768 :1```

Run the environment:

```./run.py --base opensuse --display ':1'```

Install dependencies in container:

```./kdesrc-build/kdesrc-build --initial-setup```

Start DBus & Plasma :

```sudo dbus-uuidgen --ensure && sudo mkdir -p /run/dbus/ && dbus-launch --sh-syntax > $HOME/dbusenv && source $HOME/dbusenv && /work/install/bin/startplasma-x11```

To configure kdesrc-buildrc, take a look at http://kdesrc-build.kde.org/documentation/

If you want to change the Qt version used during the compilation, you can provide a the path to a Qt installation on the host with :

./run.py --base archlinux --qt /path/to/qt

This path will be mounted under /qt

Don't forget to change the qtdir variable in the kdesrc-buildrc