debconf: (No usable dialog-like program is installed, so the dialog based frontend cannot be used.

[carolin31]

Hello,

I am trying to use neurodocker to make an afni container. I first did:

neurodocker generate singularity --base=ubuntu:bionic --pkg-manager=apt --install sshfs tcsh --afni method-binaries version=latest install_r_pkgs=true > afni.recipe

and then:
singularity build --fakeroot afni.sif afni.recipe

I get the following screen and after I enter US and hit enter it gets stuck and does not continue with the building process:

I googled the error and found this but I don t know how to incorporate this into the neurodocker call.

I am grateful for any help!
Thank you very much in advance!
Carolin

[stebo85]

Dear @carolin31,

In our neurodesk project we build afni in a centos7 container as we found this to work a bit better then a ubuntu base - maybe that could solve your problem?:
https://github.com/NeuroDesk/neurocontainers/blob/master/recipes/afni/build.sh

Also, you could use our built and tested afni container if this works for you :)
https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/vnmd/afni_21.2.00

you can create a singularity container from this by running:
singularity build afni_21.2.00.simg docker://vnmd/afni_21.2.00

or you could use our afni container as a base in your recipe and add more packages to it :)

I hope this helps
Kind regards
Steffen

[afonsoguerra]

I know this is ancient, but if you export the timezone to the environment at the start of %post, it won't ask when installing tzdata during container creation. You can also export the front-end as non-interactive:

e.g.
%post
export TZ='America/New_York'
export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive

[esalome]

Installing a (small) package compatible with "dialog" feature with clear the "can't find a dialog-like program" error when installing other packages in an interactive way 👍
apt install whiptail

did it for me.

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open for 30 days with no activity.

[stebo85]

should export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive be added as a default for apt based images? This could prevent many user problems like this?

[Remi-Gau]

should export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive be added as a default for apt based images? This could prevent many user problems like this?

I would be in favor of this

[DiegoGuati00]

a mi me funciono esta linea que esta en el docker de laravel sail

ENV TZ=UTC
RUN ln -snf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime && echo $TZ > /etc/timezone

[prehensilecode]

a mi me funciono esta linea que esta en el docker de laravel sail

ENV TZ=UTC RUN ln -snf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime && echo $TZ > /etc/timezone

This worked for me, as well, and allows for a non-interactive build, e.g. by submitting the build job to an HPC cluster.

N.B. installing whiptail will give a terminal-based user interface.