Build of a first 'litterbox' container on Debian 13 fails

[ranvik14]

I have installed Litterbox in a Debian 13-based Test-VM.

All the documented dependencies are fulfilled - and - I'm able to define a first 'litterbox' container, using the 'Ubuntu LTS' template.

When I try to build it with the unmodified proposed Dockerfile the command consistently fails with the following error msg:

    ...
    STEP 15/15: LABEL "work.litterbox.name"="test-litterbox"
    COMMIT lbx-test-litterbox
    --> 9c81a18f68c1
    Successfully tagged localhost/lbx-test-litterbox:latest
    9c81a18f68c12e7815c5d529af02a81e1c7957ed848c98e46bfc3e4d2e7666bc
    [2026-06-22T14:28:34Z INFO  litterbox::podman] Built image named lbx-test-litterbox.
    Error: Environment variable WAYLAND_DISPLAY is not defined

    Caused by:
        environment variable not found
    user@Test-VM07:~$ 

Are there any other dependencies, that the Test-VM has to fulfill ?

[Gerharddc]

It seems you might not have a Wayland server running on your system. Can you confirm that the WAYLAND_DISPLAY environment variable evaluates to something and that you do have a Wayland server (such as those from GNOME, KDE etc.) running?

Currently Litterbox assumes that you have a Wayland server running on your system as it does not currently have support for X11. It also does not have support for running without any display server, as most Litterbox features cannot be used in that situation.

[ranvik14]

@Gerharddc : No, currently I do not have a Wayland server running on my system.

I use Qubes OS as my daily driver - and - AFAIK it still does not support Wayland ( at all ? / by default ! ).

I will check with community & report back to you, if Wayland Server is supported in Qubes OS R4.3.

PS: Here's the link to Qubes OS Forum, that made me aware of 'Litterbox'.

• https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/distrobox-guide-run-any-linux-distribution-in-qubes-without-pain/42117/23

[Gerharddc]

Ah, I see!

I've never tried Qubes OS, but I understand the concept is that everything runs inside a VM there. In theory, just because the Qubes compositor does not support Wayland, it does not have to mean that you can't have a Wayland compositor running inside the VM. Though I guess how possible/practical that is depends on how exactly things are integrated in Qubes.

If you really want to get this working on Qubes, it should theoretically also be possible to add X11 support to Litterbox, but I don't currently have the time or interest to implement that myself unfortunately.

And if you are interested in Litterbox without access to any graphical features, modifying it to work without Wayland should also be relatively straight forward.

My very very long-term plan/dream is to add a microVM back-end to Litterbox so that it can "replace" something like Qubes, but that is also a long way off at the moment...