Hey man, could you make a video (or send me alink or something) how to do this with Hyprland? There are none tutorials how to do that and i do not know what to do
Tools like Nix, Distrobox (Podman), Flatpaks, AppImages, QEMU/KVM will make immutable linux distros like Fedora SilverBlue and SteamOS very accessible to desktop users.
I don't think I have ever seen Matt this happy about talking about anything. The smile is something refreshing to say the least! He seems like hhe really likes distrobox!
I'm glad you mentioned the stuff about the containers using your host home directory, because that's exactly what I was wondering. See, I'm considering a distrohop, and I'm trying to decide between Arch, Endeavour and Debian. This might tip me in favor of Debian.
This is manifestly one of the best videos on your channel. _Very excited about this package_ . I use Debian/Ubuntu/PopOS and I was missing the latest version of neovim and now I can just use an Arch version inside my Pop machine. Further more in my programming workflow I can integrate all my build systems, test file and pen testing via distobox. *Goodbye virtual machines.*
Been using it as the main environment for few months, using kinoite so i just threw myself into full blown containerization and its great, few scripts to set them up easily Few tips - Use common dirs for package managers like npm, pip, cargo so you can use same apps in both the system and container without installing it several times, also great for immutable systems - Make a script to set it up automatically Few caveats - Often the container wont quit fully, it will linger in background and so it may fill your ram or even slow your system down without you knowing why (if you do not believe me try running `sleep 60s` and qutting the terminal and then find all shells running) - systemd is not available which may cause problems with vscode for example
@@livb4139 while i did not run games from it (i use flatpak steam which is same tech), i did not notice any overhead, as logically there should be very little as the kernel is shared, no duplicate init system
You said you found out a lot of cool things around Linux over the years. I would love to see a video where you go over each of these tools, software or even useful configuration files
The main advantage to containerizing applications is having multiple copies of shared libraries. It creates a clean, separated environment for whatever you want.
I like that we get the typical nerd bro, but he has tempered his inclination toward rambling. He knows he can ramble, so he pays special attention to the time. We get a little bit of extra info and details without him going on a full blow ramble. Good stuff.
suggestion: if you like distrobox you would also love bedrock linux, absolutely mind blowing distro. You can even swap out your complete init system as well
I was going to ask what the difference between distrobox and docker. Then I went to distrobox github and noticed that distrobox used docker underneath.
Distrobox is cool. Just as a quick tip, it's possible to tell distrobox to make a desktop file and add it to your desktop environment automatically instead of copying the command and making it yourself.
"When I hear about containers..." LOL In reality....they're just so practical when you need to isolate something without leaving "leftovers" on your own system (packages, configs, files, etc.) ; the case for distrobox is to have the disposable env on demand...without the silo effect...that is: you share your host filesystem. There are scenarios in which you prefer the silo situation and others in which you need tight integration (with all associated risks...like messing up your host files and folders). Both scenarios represent a first step toward "OS compartimentalization" - Layer 1 host OS (mutable or immutable) - layer 2 snaps/flatpaks/appimages - layer 3 containers (isolated with docker - integrated with distrobox) - layer 4 fully virtualized envs (good old sandboxed, VMs). For everyday use it might look like a nuke used to peel an apple....but in more demanding scenarios (you need to work with different envs on a daily basis and continually jump from one to another...) it's a godsend.
Interesting, Phoronix produced an article about clear Linux. I guess clear Linux has shown performance over other distributions Using Distrobox To Augment The Package Selection On Clear Linux, Other Distributions
Distrobox maybe great for terminal jockeys. As a collector I prefer Virtualbox, besides my graphical Linux distros, I run all Windows releases from 1987 (1.04) till 2023 (11 Pro), FreeBSD; OS/2 Warp; MS-DOS and DR-DOS :) :) Virtualbox is very easy to use also the USB pass-through. It is reliable, responsive and fast, e.g Xubuntu boots in 6.5 seconds. It has backward compatibility, my oldest still active VM is Windows XP installed and activated in March 2010. Use of recent containers: I run the latest stable version of the Firefox and LibreOffice snaps in Ubuntu 16.04 ESM and that support was out-of-the-box.
I think running WMs inside distrobox won't have access to software in the host system, so app launchers, all your dmenu-s and rofi-s won't work, right?
They will, kinda, You have to change the path, and do some work to get it to work, and the apps you launch will be from the container, not the host system
To clarify, is Qtile (or whichever WM or DE you're running on Debian) still there in the background while you're running Awesome? Or are you running Awesome on its own?
@@TheLinuxCast Thanks for the tip! It's actually a little surprising that more people aren't experimenting with this, given how popular immutable distros are becoming.
Unraid (paid) makes gpu passthrough to VMs super easy. Proxmox is FOSS and has a few CLI commands but makes pass through kinda easy. Both OS make hardware pass through super convenient. I’ll be checking out distrobox!
Great idea! Ideal for always-on machines like media and network storage servers which are also used as workstations (may be typical in home envoronments?) where you might want to run AUR stuff, for example, without having to do a system upgrade and probably reboot before installing said software, if I've got this right? .. i.e. you could have Debian Stable & still get the latest software? Fantastic.
I've struggled with VMs, and I have no experience with containers, so here's my dumb question: can you launch "fedora1" (in your demo) and use it as you would in a vm? Or am I fantasizing? It would be amazing to access my host's home directory from within the container.
By default, any Distrobox that you create uses your hosts home directory. So yes, you can do that. As for running it like a VM, I'm still not sure. I think a lot of that functionality could be there, but it would be a bit different because the network is the same.
Thank you very much for the video! However it would be even MUCH better if you have actually shown the running application's GUI inside it's container on the host-system. That is to say, we need the example before our eyes. I'm especially interested in how GUI works inside the system, or how does the "Xorg" server appear inside the "Wayland", and so on...
Cute. Not you, but your excitement 😂😂😂 When you ran Firefox, if you press Ctrl + o, what directories are you going to see? The one from the container or the one from the host? And if it's one from the container, how do you switch it to the host?
if you want the security and are still testing. use one VM for all distrobox environments. then you know where they are but still secure from your main system.only one GPU pass through to one VM?
For me, part of virtualization and containerization is separating networks from eachother so certain apps can be contained in their own networks. Can that be done still in distrobox?
@@TheLinuxCast I would imagine either way it's similar to bridging your network in a vm, so not necessarily what I was hoping for but either way good video, I haven't really seen much on this before this so I'll definitely check it out.
Run windows in a container to play games only available for Windows on your Debian linux metal or does distrobox not include windows bc of the obvious title "distros" making it out of scope ? I was just putting a use case that popped to mind first
It's not possible because a container is basically just an isolated section of your system. You get isolated filesystem, processes, network, but it's sharing the Linux kernel with your host system. Windows and Mac use different kernels, so you'll need a VM.
Man, if I could just figure out how to pipe spotify-adblock through spotify. I have them both installed but it put the adblock in /etc/ instead of /usr/bin/, and I have no idea how to add something to my PATH. Or if that's even the right answer?
I want to setup Hyprland on Fedora with a distrobox runnin Arch because I can't set it up with the fedora guide from the Hyprland wiki and I followed your tutorial but it's not showing up in GDM.
Do you have any idea if this would work on services? I run fedora, and I pretty much gave up with trying to get chrome remote desktop working on fedora but it works great on ubuntu. How are updates handled. For example if you install arch do you update with Pacman or do you do the updates through distrobox? Thanks for this video it was very informative. I might try to see if i can install it on WSL when i go to work on Monday.
Okay, so assuming you mean systemd services, it will share systemd services with the host system, but the container has no control over those services, and some things aren't available to the container, like reboot and shutdown.
I've been meaning to try DistroBox, but keep forgetting when I have the time. Although, I don't know if I can use it on my system. Does it require systemD?
All this universal ways of installing software of linux are very nice it would be awesome if you could do a review a about nixos and the nix package manager which are doing so much noise on the community.
i hate to say this [because it's 100% smug-mode, and, risks giving away linux's best kept secret], but... as a bedrock user for a decade, the wow of this is fairly underwhelming, like... "we already got that". n_n but yeah, it's cool that you can even combine distrobox and bedrock... i'm sure there's some edge case reason to. n_n
Well, Nix is its own beast with a new programming language to learn just to know how to set up and configure your system. Not everyone is willing or have the time to do that. With Distrobox and/or Silverblue/Ublue etc you can use common cloud tools and what you already know.
Hi, for me container dont have any matters, if aplication after install, compile, works without any problems, crash and other, i dont care even update, becouse if you use program and that program alweys let you end your task job done,”if something work dont update it” Mr. Is your choice to stick with one type or container but, all that speak is like rage on forum what is better, some „dumb ass” scream and want ubuntu to change snap to flatpak, dont know why ububuntu use snap, and why flatpak cand do same as snap format for ubuntu, same with appimage, if you need older version seme application becouse you need or like older and new then you dont choice appimage becouse you use same app in 2 version and you dont care some update one of then delete and replace your version. All format have good and bad side, but at last we you spps not container like rar gzip zip tar, etc. Not mater, Yes you have choice and good bat tell something is better becouse, install and update is faster is just wrong point of view, gantoo, use compile all the time you lost your life waiting, but when you end you know what your app was installed step by step and what you choice to ON or Off on end. Thats is is wrong? I dont think so. All have choice good for you :) Cheers form Poland.
Time stamps are in the description, IDK if RUclips is going to show them in the video or not. File complaints at fosstodon.org/@thelinuxcast
Does distrobox play audio. When running a media player in it?
Hey man, could you make a video (or send me alink or something) how to do this with Hyprland? There are none tutorials how to do that and i do not know what to do
distrobox-export -a Firefox will make the desktop file for you
You are awesome. Thank you ❤️
Tools like Nix, Distrobox (Podman), Flatpaks, AppImages, QEMU/KVM will make immutable linux distros like Fedora SilverBlue and SteamOS very accessible to desktop users.
A front end GUI could spread this like wildfire.
In Vanilla Os GUI working well ;)
I don't think I have ever seen Matt this happy about talking about anything. The smile is something refreshing to say the least! He seems like hhe really likes distrobox!
Matt your like a kid in a candy store GVM.
What is GVM?
I'm glad you mentioned the stuff about the containers using your host home directory, because that's exactly what I was wondering. See, I'm considering a distrohop, and I'm trying to decide between Arch, Endeavour and Debian. This might tip me in favor of Debian.
Once you get a hit of distrobox, there ain't no going back.
This is manifestly one of the best videos on your channel. _Very excited about this package_ . I use Debian/Ubuntu/PopOS and I was missing the latest version of neovim and now I can just use an Arch version inside my Pop machine. Further more in my programming workflow I can integrate all my build systems, test file and pen testing via distobox. *Goodbye virtual machines.*
Been using it as the main environment for few months, using kinoite so i just threw myself into full blown containerization and its great, few scripts to set them up easily
Few tips
- Use common dirs for package managers like npm, pip, cargo so you can use same apps in both the system and container without installing it several times, also great for immutable systems
- Make a script to set it up automatically
Few caveats
- Often the container wont quit fully, it will linger in background and so it may fill your ram or even slow your system down without you knowing why (if you do not believe me try running `sleep 60s` and qutting the terminal and then find all shells running)
- systemd is not available which may cause problems with vscode for example
what about the performance overhead of running apps containerized? like if I wanna run something I'll use a lot like web browser, IDE or video games
since you say you're using kinoite, it comes with toolbox by default. Did you switch to distrobox? if so why?
@@livb4139 toolbox is limited and supports very specific images, distrobox can setup most images to work with it and is faster usually
@@livb4139 while i did not run games from it (i use flatpak steam which is same tech), i did not notice any overhead, as logically there should be very little as the kernel is shared, no duplicate init system
You said you found out a lot of cool things around Linux over the years.
I would love to see a video where you go over each of these tools, software or even useful configuration files
The main advantage to containerizing applications is having multiple copies of shared libraries. It creates a clean, separated environment for whatever you want.
I like that we get the typical nerd bro, but he has tempered his inclination toward rambling. He knows he can ramble, so he pays special attention to the time. We get a little bit of extra info and details without him going on a full blow ramble.
Good stuff.
I learned a lot from this video. Thank you very much. Tech field needs more humble person like you man.
suggestion: if you like distrobox you would also love bedrock linux, absolutely mind blowing distro. You can even swap out your complete init system as well
Interesting - seems Bedrock has not been updated in over a year though...?
@@madsnygaard6444 why would you want an update when its literally downloading a rootfs which you then as it is have to run the upgrade commands lmao
awesome video, I can see the benefits of using a bleeding edge on top of a stable ditstro, amazing
Another great video Matt. Tons of gentoo neofetch images coming i guess.
I was going to ask what the difference between distrobox and docker. Then I went to distrobox github and noticed that distrobox used docker underneath.
Yup and podman.
Distrobox is cool. Just as a quick tip, it's possible to tell distrobox to make a desktop file and add it to your desktop environment automatically instead of copying the command and making it yourself.
Can you pls share how to create a desktop file for a distrobox app on the host machine?
"When I hear about containers..." LOL
In reality....they're just so practical when you need to isolate something without leaving "leftovers" on your own system (packages, configs, files, etc.) ; the case for distrobox is to have the disposable env on demand...without the silo effect...that is: you share your host filesystem. There are scenarios in which you prefer the silo situation and others in which you need tight integration (with all associated risks...like messing up your host files and folders). Both scenarios represent a first step toward "OS compartimentalization" - Layer 1 host OS (mutable or immutable) - layer 2 snaps/flatpaks/appimages - layer 3 containers (isolated with docker - integrated with distrobox) - layer 4 fully virtualized envs (good old sandboxed, VMs). For everyday use it might look like a nuke used to peel an apple....but in more demanding scenarios (you need to work with different envs on a daily basis and continually jump from one to another...) it's a godsend.
Interesting, Phoronix produced an article about clear Linux. I guess clear Linux has shown performance over other distributions
Using Distrobox To Augment The Package Selection On Clear Linux, Other Distributions
I heard Clear Linux will be abandoned.
Great video. Thank you for bringing us these awesome explanations.
I might be able to do this to create more complex servers in the future.
Coolest example I saw war using DB for running DaVinci Resolve.
+1 on doing a Nix OS video
Distrobox maybe great for terminal jockeys. As a collector I prefer Virtualbox, besides my graphical Linux distros, I run all Windows releases from 1987 (1.04) till 2023 (11 Pro), FreeBSD; OS/2 Warp; MS-DOS and DR-DOS :) :) Virtualbox is very easy to use also the USB pass-through. It is reliable, responsive and fast, e.g Xubuntu boots in 6.5 seconds. It has backward compatibility, my oldest still active VM is Windows XP installed and activated in March 2010.
Use of recent containers: I run the latest stable version of the Firefox and LibreOffice snaps in Ubuntu 16.04 ESM and that support was out-of-the-box.
You can use a different home directory with --home
wondering during backup, does the home directory back up as well?
Matt. You are the real wizard
I think running WMs inside distrobox won't have access to software in the host system, so app launchers, all your dmenu-s and rofi-s won't work, right?
They will, kinda, You have to change the path, and do some work to get it to work, and the apps you launch will be from the container, not the host system
This seems really cool but I still can't think of a usecase for myself.
To clarify, is Qtile (or whichever WM or DE you're running on Debian) still there in the background while you're running Awesome? Or are you running Awesome on its own?
It's awesome on its own in the container. At least as far as I know.
@@TheLinuxCast Thanks for the tip! It's actually a little surprising that more people aren't experimenting with this, given how popular immutable distros are becoming.
Unraid (paid) makes gpu passthrough to VMs super easy. Proxmox is FOSS and has a few CLI commands but makes pass through kinda easy. Both OS make hardware pass through super convenient.
I’ll be checking out distrobox!
I'll have to take a look at that
Great idea! Ideal for always-on machines like media and network storage servers which are also used as workstations (may be typical in home envoronments?) where you might want to run AUR stuff, for example, without having to do a system upgrade and probably reboot before installing said software, if I've got this right? .. i.e. you could have Debian Stable & still get the latest software? Fantastic.
Proxmox does that, it is basically a Debian server that you can create VMs and Containers
I've struggled with VMs, and I have no experience with containers, so here's my dumb question: can you launch "fedora1" (in your demo) and use it as you would in a vm? Or am I fantasizing?
It would be amazing to access my host's home directory from within the container.
By default, any Distrobox that you create uses your hosts home directory. So yes, you can do that. As for running it like a VM, I'm still not sure. I think a lot of that functionality could be there, but it would be a bit different because the network is the same.
Thank you very much for the video! However it would be even MUCH better if you have actually shown the running application's GUI inside it's container on the host-system. That is to say, we need the example before our eyes. I'm especially interested in how GUI works inside the system, or how does the "Xorg" server appear inside the "Wayland", and so on...
I ran Firefox. That was in the container.
Bro you did great job of explaining it thank you.
i choose docker full os because is more flexible and can be tune as cloud computing / cloud gaming :)
Cute. Not you, but your excitement 😂😂😂
When you ran Firefox, if you press Ctrl + o, what directories are you going to see? The one from the container or the one from the host? And if it's one from the container, how do you switch it to the host?
The directory from the host. If you try 'ls' inside the container shell, it will show the home directory of the host distro.
This looks super cool, Ive had issues getting Brave to work from the AUR, Im going to try the Debian version using this method
why you just dont use export command on distrobox
Because I didn't know about it until after the video
Do you know about VanillaOS? 2.0 is in the works with a Debian base. It's basically Distrobox in a Distro
what about the performance overhead of running apps containerized?
I plan to install Debian 12 onto my Pinebook Pro, so this may be very useful for that. So ta for this! 👍
12:19 so we could add a VPN directly to Firefox or any other app if we wanted to download Linux ISOs privately?
Yes I think so. I don't see why not. It may take some finagling but I'm not sure what.
if you want the security and are still testing. use one VM for all distrobox environments. then you know where they are but still secure from your main system.only one GPU pass through to one VM?
Ever since I found it NVIDIA drivers can be installed I switched to using it for anything AI related because I was tired of Python breaking lol
yeah, there's no need to install apps on your host machine anymore thanks to containers.
Haven't watched a video of yours in a while, nice beard!
You're being sarcastic right?
@@folksurvival
Nope!
The last time I watched a video by Matt his beard wasn't grown out like this.
It looks great on him now!
For me, part of virtualization and containerization is separating networks from eachother so certain apps can be contained in their own networks. Can that be done still in distrobox?
Probably with the use of VPNs. And there are probably other ways too. I'm just not sure
@@TheLinuxCast I would imagine either way it's similar to bridging your network in a vm, so not necessarily what I was hoping for but either way good video, I haven't really seen much on this before this so I'll definitely check it out.
13:13 What do your display manager session files for distroboxed window managers look like?
Run windows in a container to play games only available for Windows on your Debian linux metal or does distrobox not include windows bc of the obvious title "distros" making it out of scope ? I was just putting a use case that popped to mind first
Oh, Windows would be cool, but I've been told that it's not technically possible. It's sad, because that would be an AWESOME usecase. MacOS too
It's not possible because a container is basically just an isolated section of your system. You get isolated filesystem, processes, network, but it's sharing the Linux kernel with your host system. Windows and Mac use different kernels, so you'll need a VM.
Good video.
You should learn more about containers.
Brother if you hear containers and think kubernetes you're way off! And I know right man? Distrobox is amazing
I said I knew nothing about them.
Man, if I could just figure out how to pipe spotify-adblock through spotify. I have them both installed but it put the adblock in /etc/ instead of /usr/bin/, and I have no idea how to add something to my PATH. Or if that's even the right answer?
You Are cool!👍✌️
How are the host, guest but more important the application performance gets affected by this?
I want to setup Hyprland on Fedora with a distrobox runnin Arch because I can't set it up with the fedora guide from the Hyprland wiki and I followed your tutorial but it's not showing up in GDM.
Do you have any idea if this would work on services? I run fedora, and I pretty much gave up with trying to get chrome remote desktop working on fedora but it works great on ubuntu. How are updates handled. For example if you install arch do you update with Pacman or do you do the updates through distrobox? Thanks for this video it was very informative. I might try to see if i can install it on WSL when i go to work on Monday.
Okay, so assuming you mean systemd services, it will share systemd services with the host system, but the container has no control over those services, and some things aren't available to the container, like reboot and shutdown.
why didn't just add to all of the FOSS apps Flatpak support and the problem is solved
So LSL linux subsystem for linux ^_^
Please take rounded stones to throw :p
cool
I've been meaning to try DistroBox, but keep forgetting when I have the time. Although, I don't know if I can use it on my system. Does it require systemD?
Probably but I don't know for sure.
All this universal ways of installing software of linux are very nice it would be awesome if you could do a review a about nixos and the nix package manager which are doing so much noise on the community.
It's on the list of things to do. Only so many hours in the day
Distrobox export exists. Why create a .desktop file manually
When I made the video I didn't know about that. I do now.
Is DistroBox similar to LXC?
I don't know, tbh. I've never used LXC
Also just recently found it and how to use it. Really like Distrobox!
The discord link is not working for me. can i get a new link
discord.gg/CfT3pbQM
i hate to say this [because it's 100% smug-mode, and, risks giving away linux's best kept secret], but...
as a bedrock user for a decade, the wow of this is fairly underwhelming, like...
"we already got that". n_n
but yeah, it's cool that you can even combine distrobox and bedrock... i'm sure there's some edge case reason to. n_n
nah just use nix
Well, Nix is its own beast with a new programming language to learn just to know how to set up and configure your system. Not everyone is willing or have the time to do that. With Distrobox and/or Silverblue/Ublue etc you can use common cloud tools and what you already know.
Hi, for me container dont have any matters, if aplication after install, compile, works without any problems, crash and other, i dont care even update, becouse if you use program and that program alweys let you end your task job done,”if something work dont update it” Mr. Is your choice to stick with one type or container but, all that speak is like rage on forum what is better, some „dumb ass” scream and want ubuntu to change snap to flatpak, dont know why ububuntu use snap, and why flatpak cand do same as snap format for ubuntu, same with appimage, if you need older version seme application becouse you need or like older and new then you dont choice appimage becouse you use same app in 2 version and you dont care some update one of then delete and replace your version. All format have good and bad side, but at last we you spps not container like rar gzip zip tar, etc. Not mater, Yes you have choice and good bat tell something is better becouse, install and update is faster is just wrong point of view, gantoo, use compile all the time you lost your life waiting, but when you end you know what your app was installed step by step and what you choice to ON or Off on end. Thats is is wrong? I dont think so. All have choice good for you :) Cheers form Poland.
so you basically need to imagine things to justify its usage, lol