Image family

quick overview

The accetto images are based on Ubuntu or Debian with Xfce desktop. They all include VNC server and noVNC client and are suitable for headless working using common web browsers or VNC viewers.

The Docker containers created from the accetto images resemble virtual machines. Despite of technical differences between Docker containers and the traditional virtual machines, working with accetto containers feels quite similar.

The accetto images can be pulled from the accetto image repositories on Docker Hub. This page contains the concise list of the repositories.

Table of contents
  1. Image family
    1. Generic images
      1. Ubuntu
      2. Ubuntu with Mesa3D and VirtualGL
      3. Debian
      4. Firefox and Chromium
    2. Headless drawing, graphics and modeling
      1. drawio-desktop
      2. GIMP
      3. Inkscape
      4. Blender
      5. FreeCAD
    3. Headless programming
      1. Postman
      2. Visual Studio Code
      3. Node.js
      4. NVM
      5. Python

The accetto image family includes generic images and application images. Furthermore, all images are available also in variations with Firefox and Chromium browsers.

All accetto images can be used as base images and further extended. Technically there are no dependencies between the generic and application images.

Please read about this pitfall before extending the images.

The Firefox browser included with the images based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is the current non-snap version from the Mozilla Team PPA. It’s because of the technical limitations of Docker containers.

The Chromium browser included with the images based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is the current non-snap version from the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS distribution. Besides the browser runs in the --no-sandbox mode. It’s because of the technical limitations of Docker containers.

Generic images

Generic accetto images include all the common features of the accetto image family, but no specific additional applications.

They are most often used as base images by extending, even if any of accetto images can be used for that purpose.

There are also great for learning and testing Linux.

Ubuntu

There are generic Ubuntu images based on the current Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and the previous Ubuntu 20.04 LTS:

animation-headless-generic-ubuntu

Ubuntu with Mesa3D and VirtualGL

There are also extended generic images containing Mesa3D (OpenGL/WebGL) and VirtualGL that are based on the current Ubuntu 22.04 LTS:

If you often visit web sites that require WebGL, then use these images. It’s guaranteed that the included web browsers support WebGL. Read more about WebGL support in web browsers.

animation-headless-generic-opengl

Debian

The Debian images are based on the current Debian 12 and the previous Debian 11:

animation-headless-generic-debian

Firefox and Chromium

Probably the most popular variations of the generic images are those with the Firefox and Chromium browsers.

You can use them, for example, as throw-away browsers or domain dedicated browsers.

There are also very useful as part of encapsulated development environments.

The images with Firefox include also Firefox Plus feature.

The following generic web browser images are based on Ubuntu:

animation-headless-generic-ubuntu-browsers

The following generic web browser images are based on Debian:

animation-headless-generic-debian-browsers

All accetto images are available in the variations with web browsers. It allows you to keep your bookmarks domain oriented. For example, you can keep all bookmarks that are helpful by working with GIMP in the GIMP container itself.

If you often visit web sites that require WebGL, then read more about WebGL support in web browsers.

Headless drawing, graphics and modeling

drawio-desktop

The repository accetto/ubuntu-vnc-xfce-drawio-g3 contains images that bring drawio-desktop, the desktop version of the popular diagramming and whiteboarding application.

The advantage of the desktop version is, that it’s completely isolated from the Internet and you can develop and save all your diagrams locally.

This is an excerpt from the drawio-desktop author’s description:

Security

draw.io Desktop is designed to be completely isolated from the Internet, apart from the update process. This checks github.com at startup for a newer version and downloads it from an AWS S3 bucket owned by Github. All JavaScript files are self-contained, the Content Security Policy forbids running remotely loaded JavaScript.

No diagram data is ever sent externally, nor do we send any analytics about app usage externally. This means certain functionality for which we do not have a JavaScript implementation do not work in the Desktop build, namely .vsd and Gliffy import.

The images contain the current drawio-desktop release installed from the author’s public repository.

animation-headless-drawing-drawio

GIMP

The repository accetto/ubuntu-vnc-xfce-gimp-g3 contains images that bring the popular image editor GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program).

The images contain the current version from the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS distribution.

animation-headless-drawing-gimp

Inkscape

The repository accetto/ubuntu-vnc-xfce-inkscape-g3 contains images that bring the popular vector drawing application Inkscape.

The images contain the current version from the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS distribution.

animation-headless-drawing-inkscape

Blender

The repository accetto/ubuntu-vnc-xfce-blender-g3 contains images that bring the popular 3D creation suite Blender.

The images contain the current version from the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS distribution.

animation-headless-drawing-blender

FreeCAD

The repository accetto/ubuntu-vnc-xfce-freecad-g3 contains images that bring the popular 3D parametric modeler FreeCAD.

The images contain the current FreeCAD release installed from the author’s public repository.

animation-headless-drawing-freecad

Please be aware that the FreeCAD images are larger than the other ones and that the download can take some time. Also starting the FreeCAD application takes a few seconds, because the large AppImage file must be extracted. The following animation illustrates the start-stop cycle.

animation-freecad-start-stop

Headless programming

Postman

The repository accetto/debian-vnc-xfce-postman-g3 contains images that bring the popular Postman App with Scratch Pad for building and testing REST APIs.

The advantage of Scratch Pad is, that you can use Postman App without signing-up and to develop and store all your assets locally. However, you can also sign-up, if you wish.

The Postman company has decided to remove Scratch Pad from Postman App as of May 15, 2023. Therefore will these images from now on always include the version 10.13.6, the last one that still contains Scratch Pad.

animation-headless-coding-postman

Visual Studio Code

The repository accetto/debian-vnc-xfce-vscode-g3 contains images that bring the popular programming editor Visual Studio Code.

The images are intended for creating encapsulated development and testing environments. They come in several variations and can be further extended and customized.

The included Visual Studio Code is the current release installed from the author’s public repository.

In the section Using Compose in the chapter Extending examples you can find the Jekyll development container that is almost identical to the one that is used for developing this very User Guide.

animation-headless-coding-vscode

Node.js

The repository accetto/debian-vnc-xfce-nodejs-g3 contains images that bring the popular JavaScript-based development platform Node.js.

The images are intended for creating encapsulated development and testing environments. They come in several variations and can be further extended and customized.

The included Node.js is the current release installed from the author’s public repository.

Publishing of these images will be phased out, because there is more flexible alternative in the repository accetto/debian-vnc-xfce-nvm-g3.

However, you can always build the images yourself using the GitHub project.

animation-headless-coding-nodejs

NVM

The repository accetto/debian-vnc-xfce-nvm-g3 contains images for headless working with the popular JavaScript-based development platform Node.js.

The images are intended for creating encapsulated development and testing environments. They come in several variations and can be further extended and customized.

However, instead of a particular Node.js version they contain the free open-source utility NVM (Node Version Manager), which allows installing and using multiple versions of Node.js and npm concurrently.

For example, the command nvm install --lts will install the latest LTS (Long Term Support) version of Node.js.

These images are meant as a more flexible alternative to the ones from the repository accetto/debian-vnc-xfce-nodejs-g3, that contain particular Node.js versions.

Publishing those images will be phased out, but you can always build them yourself using the GitHub project.

animation-headless-coding-nvm

Python

The repository accetto/debian-vnc-xfce-python-g3 contains images that bring the popular programming language Python.

The images are intended for creating encapsulated development and testing environments. They come in several variations and can be further extended and customized.

The images contain Python from the current Debian 12 distribution.

animation-headless-coding-python

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