Emacs GUI Container

Overview

A containerized Emacs GUI environment using Alpine Linux with native compilation support and Wayland compatibility.

Features

• Emacs PGTK with native compilation support
• Wayland and X11 compatibility
• Pre-configured development tools: ripgrep, fd, git
• Spell checking: aspell, hunspell with English dictionaries
• GPG integration with pinentry support
• Modern fonts: JetBrains Mono Nerd Font, Noto Emoji, DejaVu
• Lightweight: Based on Alpine Linux 3.22.1

Quick Start

Building the Container

podman build -t emacs-gui .
# or
docker build -t emacs-gui .

Running with Podman example

(change tsb for whatever your user is)

podman run -it --rm \
    --name emacs-gui --userns keep-id \
    -e WAYLAND_DISPLAY \
    -e EMACS_CONTAINER=1 \
    -v $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR:/tmp/runtime-1000:ro \
    -v ~/.config/emacs:/home/tsb/.config/emacs:Z \
    -v ~/.cache/neodoom:/home/tsb/.cache/neodoom:Z \
    --device /dev/dri \
    --security-opt label=disable \
    emacs-gui

Running with Docker + xorg

(change tsb for whatever your user is and at the moment use the feature/xorg branch)

docker run -it --rm \
  -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY \
  -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:ro \
  -v ~/.config/emacs:/home/tsb/.config/emacs \
  -v ~/your-projects:/home/tsb/projects \
  emacs-gui

Configuration

Environment Variables

• EMACS_CONTAINER=1 - Set automatically to indicate container environment
• Mount your Emacs configuration to /home/tsb/.config/emacs

GPG Configuration

GPG is pre-configured with allow-loopback-pinentry for container compatibility. Your GPG keys can be mounted if needed.

Custom User ID

To match your host user ID:

podman build --build-arg USER_ID=$(id -u) --build-arg GROUP_ID=$(id -g) -t emacs-gui .

Included Packages

Category	Packages
Core	emacs-pgtk-nativecomp, dbus, wayland-libs
Development	build-base, git, ripgrep, fd, curl, wget
Fonts	font-jetbrains-mono-nerd, ttf-dejavu, font-noto-emoji
Spell Check	aspell-en, hunspell-en
Security	gnupg, pinentry
Themes	adwaita-icon-theme, breeze-cursors

Troubleshooting

Display Issues

• Ensure $WAYLAND_DISPLAY or $DISPLAY is properly set
• Verify XDG_RUNTIME_DIR socket mounting for Wayland

Font Issues

• Container includes common fonts; mount additional fonts if needed:

  -v ~/.local/share/fonts:/home/tsb/.local/share/fonts:ro
      

Performance

• Native compilation cache persists in your mounted .config/emacs directory
• First run may be slower as packages compile