Installing XVFB: Headless Thumbnail Generation for Sheetster

Sheetster uses Java swing components to render thumbnail images of documents.

In order to perform the rendering, the system running Sheetster must have a valid graphics environment such as X11.

Headless mode operation in Java does not suffice, as Sheetster requires the heavyweight frame classes to render the objects.

On linux systems without an X server, an option that has been tested is to use the X virtual frame buffer or XVFB:

Installation of XVFB is straightforward:
http://corpocrat.com/2008/08/19/how-to-install-xvfb-x11-server-in-linux-server/

Another option is to install the pure Java Awt implementation from Eteks:
http://www.eteks.com/pja/doc/com/eteks/awt/PJAToolkit.html

Finally, thumbnail generation can be turned off using the setting:

disable_thumbnails=true