GUI, webcam and GPU passthrough for ROS 2 and MuJoCo containers

contact@mulhamfetna.com (Mulham Fetna) — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Containers are headless by design. This project needs two windows, a webcam and a GPU — so the Compose file spends most of its lines punching carefully chosen holes back through the isolation.

Two containers, two windows, one X display: the Qt/OpenCV tracker (vision_tracker) and the GLFW MuJoCo viewer (mujoco_twin), recorded on Wayland through XWayland.

Windows: pass the X11 socket through
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environment:
  DISPLAY: ${DISPLAY:-:0}
  QT_X11_NO_MITSHM: 1
volumes:
  - /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw

Piece	What it does
`/tmp/.X11-unix` mount	the X server listens on a Unix socket here (`X0` for `:0`); mounting it gives the container a line to it
`DISPLAY`	tells X clients (GLFW, Qt) which display to use; defaults to `:0`
`QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1`	stops Qt — OpenCV’s `imshow` backend — from using MIT-SHM, which fails across containers and gives blank or garbled windows
`xhost +local:root` (in `setup_host.sh`)	the X server refuses untrusted clients; this admits local root, which is who the containers run as

On Wayland
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Wayland sessions (KDE Plasma, GNOME) still run XWayland on :0, and both windows open through it — the recording above was made exactly that way. Running MuJoCo natively on a Wayland host, GLFW may warn Wayland: The platform does not provide the window position; it’s harmless.

Linux on Mulham Fetna

GUI, webcam and GPU passthrough for ROS 2 and MuJoCo containers

Windows: pass the X11 socket through #

On Wayland #

Windows: pass the X11 socket through
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On Wayland
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