C++ DevBox

A Docker development box for C/C++.

Stable: Debian Linux 12-bookworm with LLVM 17 & GCC 13, VulkanSDK 1.3.275.0, CMake, VCPKG, zsh

Unstable: Debian Linux 13-trixie with LLVM 18 & GCC 13, VulkanSDK 1.3.275.0, CMake, VCPKG, zsh

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What is this?

This repository maintains a Dockerfile for generating two container images based on Debian Linux.

One image includes GCC and LLVM (container size: ~2GB).

The other image includes GCC, LLVM, and Vulkan SDK (container size: ~4GB).

Both images are published to the Github Container Registry (GHCR).

The purpose of these images is to setup a C++ development environment within Visual Studio Code using a devcontainer config.

What is pre-installed?

Here is a basic overview of the pre-installed tools. For details, please refer to the Dockerfile.

Base: Debian 12 - Bookworm

On top of the base image the following tools are installed:

• zsh with plugins: autosuggestions, completions, history substring search
• git, nano, jq
• curl, wget
• cppcheck, valgrind, ccache
• CMake
• vcpkg

The following C/C++ compilers and their toolchains are available:

• LLVM 17.0.2
• GCC 12.2.0
• GCC 13.2.0

The with-vulkansdk image additionally contains:

• Vulkan SDK 1.3.275.0

Prerequisites

You need the following things to run this:

• Docker
• Visual Studio Code

How to run this?

There are two ways of setting the container up.

Either by building the container image locally or by fetching the prebuild container image from the Github container registry.

Building the Container Image locally using VSCode

• Step 1. Get the source: clone this repository using git or download the zip

• Step 2. In VSCode open the folder in a container (Remote Containers: Open Folder in Container):

  This will build the container image (Starting Dev Container (show log): Building image..)

  Which takes a while...

  Then, finally...

• Step 3. Enjoy! 😎

Fetching the prebuild container images using Docker

This container image is published to the Github Container Registry (GHCR).

You may find the package here: https://github.com/jakoch/cpp-devbox/pkgs/container/cpp-devbox.

Command Line

You can install the container image from the command line:

docker pull ghcr.io/jakoch/cpp-devbox:bookworm-latest

For the image containing Vulkan SDK append with-vulkansdk-latest:

docker pull ghcr.io/jakoch/cpp-devbox:bookworm-with-vulkansdk-latest

Dockerfile

You might also use this container image as a base image in your own Dockerfile:

FROM ghcr.io/jakoch/cpp-devbox:bookworm-latest

Fetching the prebuild container images using a .devcontainer config

Devcontainer.json

You might use this container image in the .devcontainer/devcontainer.json file of your project:

{
  "name": "My C++ Project DevBox",
  "image": "ghcr.io/jakoch/cpp-devbox:bookworm-latest"
}

Devcontainer.json + with-vulkansdk image

You might use this container image in the .devcontainer/devcontainer.json file of your project:

{
  "name": "My C++ Project DevBox",
  "image": "ghcr.io/jakoch/cpp-devbox:bookworm-with-vulkansdk-latest"
}

Fetching the bleeding-edge prebuild container images

The bleeding-edge container versions are build using Debian 13 - Trixie. Trixie ships GCC 13.2 and LLVM 16 by default. There is no newer version of GCC atm. We raise the LLVM version to 18.

These image versions are unstable, because:

• a) the Debian base image Trixie is unstable,
• b) LLVM 18 has package requirements, which can not be resolved with Trixie packages alone, so several Debian SID packages are required.

The following tags are created only on push, not when tagging:

Trixie - Base Image

• ghcr.io/jakoch/cpp-devbox:trixie-20240310-sha-a67831a
• ghcr.io/jakoch/cpp-devbox:trixie-latest

Trixie - With VulkanSDK

• ghcr.io/jakoch/cpp-devbox:trixie-with-vulkansdk-20240310-sha-a67831a
• ghcr.io/jakoch/cpp-devbox:trixie-with-vulkansdk-latest