Description

When running AionUi --webui on a headless Linux system (e.g., inside a proot-distro container without a graphical environment), the application crashes with a Segmentation fault.

This happens because the $DISPLAY environment variable is not set, and even though the application attempts to enable headless mode, Electron's UI platform fails to initialize.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Set up a headless Linux environment (like a base Ubuntu in proot-distro).
2. Install AionUi.
3. Run AionUi --webui.

Error Log

[.../ERROR:ui/ozone/platform/x11/ozone_platform_x11.cc:250] Missing X server or $DISPLAY
[.../ERROR:ui/aura/env.cc:257] The platform failed to initialize.  Exiting.
Segmentation fault

Analysis

The root cause is that Electron, unlike pure Chromium, still has dependencies on a graphical environment even when running with a --headless flag. The current implementation in src/utils/configureChromium.ts correctly identifies the headless environment and adds the --headless switch, but this is not sufficient to prevent the crash.

The application crashes during the early initialization of the UI platform before the main application logic has a chance to run.

Workaround

The application can be started successfully by "tricking" it into believing a display is present:

export DISPLAY=:1
AionUi --webui --no-sandbox

This allows the application to get past the initial UI platform check and start the web server.

Suggested Fix

A proper fix would be to avoid the dependency on a display server altogether when in --webui mode.

One possible solution could be to use xvfb (X Virtual Framebuffer) to create a virtual display. This could be integrated into the startup script or launcher.

For example, a wrapper script could be used:

#!/bin/bash
if [[ "$OSTYPE" == "linux-gnu"* ]] && [ -z "$DISPLAY" ] && [[ " $* " == *" --webui "* ]]; then
  # If on Linux, no display is set, and --webui is a parameter
  xvfb-run -a AionUi "$@"
else
  AionUi "$@"
fi

Alternatively, there might be a more modern way to achieve a truly headless Electron application, but research indicates that xvfb is still the most reliable method.

Another option could be to check for the ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE environment variable. If this variable is set, Electron will run as a Node.js process, bypassing the Chromium rendering engine entirely. This might be a viable option for the web UI mode.