Some distros come with a handy "xvfb-run" wrapper script that starts Xvfb, runs the supplied command, and later stops Xvfb. It would be nice if emerging x11-base/xorg-server with +xvfb USE flag would install such script. Related (and old) Debian bug report: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=363373 Debian repository with xvfb-run script and manpage: http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=tree;f=debian/local;hb=HEAD It's probably also available from Fedora repository.
poke. what is the status on this?
I found a copy of the script: http://www.flexthinker.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/xvfb-run.sh.txt Until it's included, for those that don't know, just wget the file, mv to /usr/bin/xvfb-run, and chmod +x.
I assume those distros use such a script for packaging purposes. We already have an equivalent script available in the virtualx eclass so that's why we don't ship an xvfb-run script. Since it's not part of the upstream source and we already have the needed functionality elsewhere (as far as packaging is concerned), I'm not thrilled at the idea of maintaining in portage a script that we (the maintainers) will never use. I'll let others from the X11 team comment, but it's a no-go from me.
I agree. If someone else wishes to package this, feel free to do so.
It seems that the python team recently added a similar package, dev-python/xvfbwrapper If that package is the same as the one from this bug, then this bug could be closed.
(In reply to Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn from comment #5) > It seems that the python team recently added a similar package, > dev-python/xvfbwrapper > > If that package is the same as the one from this bug, then this bug could be > closed. 'dev-python/xvfbwrapper' is intented to start a xvfb instance from within a python script while 'xvfb-run' is for use in console.
Closing as per Chí-Thanh's last comment.