To test graphical applications on Scratchbox you have several X server to export display (VNC, Xephyr, …) However, i conclude Xephyr is the best option because its very light and fast. I know the most of developers use testing or experimental version of Debian; however, sometimes is not possible to update your machine due several reasons: important legacy services which require Sarge, too much stress to lose time on it :), too much busy system administrator, …
In case you want to develop using Scratchbox and Debian Sarge, you should know there is no available version of Xephyr (a very common problem). However, software developers community is great and they always think in all these things to make our life easier. I found a precompiled version of Xephyr, with required static libraries to run it independently of installed Sarge libraries:
http://www.c3sl.ufpr.br/multiterminal/howtos/howto-xephyr-en.htm
The steps to install and run Xephyr on Sarge are very simple:
- Download the Xephyr binary here
- Extract it into your work directory (pwd).
- Export LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to add Xephyr library path:
- export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=pwd/Xephyr/lib/
- Execute Xephyr with the following options:
- ./bin/Xephyr :2 -host-cursor -screen 800x480x16 -dpi 96 -ac
Obviously, you could add pwd/bin to your PATH environment variable.