RPCEmu in docker with VNC server

Introduction

This repository contains the docker build commands for the Docker hub repositories:

• https://hub.docker.com/r/gerph/rpcemu-base
• https://hub.docker.com/r/gerph/rpcemu-5
• https://hub.docker.com/r/gerph/rpcemu-3.7

These docker images contain:

• An Ubuntu 24.04 OS.
• A VNC server.
• An installation of RPCEmu.
• (depending on the container) The RISC OS 5 or RISC OS 3.7 images from https://www.marutan.net/rpcemu/easystart.html.
• A small module to allow for VNC server resizes on mode change.

Building

To build these images locally:

make

To build individual images, use the targets base, ro37, or ro5.

By default this will use version 0.9.5 of RPCEmu. Adding RPCEMU_VERSION to the make command will select a different version of RPCEmu. Valid values are:

• 0.9.4
• 0.9.5 (default)
• extended (RPCEmu debugger)

RPCEmu debugger

The extended version uses the work by Andrew Timmins on his rpcemu-extended fork of RPCEmu (forked from 0.9.5). Specifically, this uses commit 48da8c6. This includes his work to add a Machine Inspector to RPCEmu that enables debugging.

A small patch is included in this repository to patch src/qt5/machine_window_inspector.cpp so that the Machine Inspector window always stays on top but allows dialog boxes to be top-most (i.e. when resetting RPCEmu). This prevents the Machine Inspector hiding behind the main RPCEmu window when clicking around inside of it.

Usage

To use the images:

docker run -it --init --rm -p 5901:5901 gerph/rpcemu-3.7
docker run -it --init --rm -p 5901:5901 gerph/rpcemu-5

To use the RPCEmu extended version, use the debug tag:

docker run -it --init --rm -p 5901:5901 gerph/rpcemu-3.7:debug
docker run -it --init --rm -p 5901:5901 gerph/rpcemu-5:debug

Then use a VNC client to connect to VNC on localhost port 1 (which might be specified as :1 or :5901 depending on your client). A password is required, which is configured to be password.

Closing RPCEmu will terminate the docker container.

To access a host directory from within the container, start the docker process with a volume mapping, thus:

docker run -it --init -v $PWD:/riscos/Shared --rm -p 5901:5901 gerph/rpcemu-3.7
docker run -it --init -v $PWD:/riscos/Shared --rm -p 5901:5901 gerph/rpcemu-5

This shares your current working directory as a directory called 'Shared' at the root of the HostFS disc.

You can replace the entire HostFS disc by specifying a mount point at /riscos, eg:

docker run -it --init -v $PWD:/riscos --rm -p 5901:5901 gerph/rpcemu-3.7

Image tags

The following tags (and images) are available on Docker Hub:

• 1 (gerph/rpcemu-3.7:1, gerph/rpcemu-5:1) - RPCEmu 0.9.3, using the original bundles, Ubuntu 20.04. These images use a different file layout, with the hostfs directory at /home/riscos/rpcemu/hostfs instead of /riscos.
• 2 (gerph/rpcemu-3.7:2, gerph/rpcemu-5:2) - RPCEmu 0.9.4, using the 0.9.4 bundles, Ubuntu 20.04.
• 3 (gerph/rpcemu-3.7:3, gerph/rpcemu-5:3) - RPCEmu 0.9.5, using the 0.9.5 bundles, Ubuntu 24.04.
• 4 (gerph/rpcemu-3.7:4, gerph/rpcemu-5:4) - RPCEmu 0.9.5, using the 0.9.5 bundles, Ubuntu 24.04, with auto-resize.
• latest - same as 4.
• debug (gerph/rpcemu-3.7:debug, gerph/rpcemu-5:debug) - RPCEmu Extended (forked from 0.9.5), using the 0.9.5 bundles, Ubuntu 24.0.4, with auto-resize.