Distrobox 1.7 Improves NVIDIA GPU Support, Better Wolfi Containers

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Distrobox 1.7 Improves NVIDIA GPU Support, Better Wolfi Containers

Distrobox is the open-source software making it easy to run any Linux distribution inside your terminal by leveraging Podman, Docker, or Lilipod for containerizing the Linux distribution of your choice. Distrobox works well with a range of Linux distros and has developed quite a following. Out now is Distrobox 1.7 with yet more improvements to this innovative software...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Distrobox-1.7

[fong38]

Nice! Seems like someone already got to updating it for NixOS too.

[patrick1946]

Yeah, I use it more and more. After I found a image for Davinci Resolve the installation got really smooth!

[sophisticles]

Can someone explain to me what exactly this is used for?

For instance, right now I am on Fedora 39 with the Mate desktop, and this will allow me to install and run Ubuntu, ir Suse or something else in the Fedora terminal but what does that mean?

What is the benefit of doing this and why would this be preferable over something like virtual box?

[kpedersen]

What is the benefit of doing this and why would this be preferable over something like virtual box?

Its basically the equivalent of a glorified chroot/jail.

Can be useful to build / test packages for a number of distros on a single machine.
It can also be useful to run older / newer software from a different distro.
Being able to pacstrap a little arch install on a more conservative / enterprise distro can be very handy to access the AUR.

It can avoid the passthrough overhead of VirtualBox. Running i.e chrome in a chroot will tend to run faster than VirtualBox. You can also leverage local bind mounts so can avoid NFS/SMB. Again this helps when using the machine as i.e a build server.

[patrick1946]

Can someone explain to me what exactly this is used for?

For instance, right now I am on Fedora 39 with the Mate desktop, and this will allow me to install and run Ubuntu, ir Suse or something else in the Fedora terminal but what does that mean?

What is the benefit of doing this and why would this be preferable over something like virtual box?

Yes, it would be allow you to install other distributions and run applications from them.

I use it for two things. I use Fedora Silverblue and I am a C++ developer and install there my IDE, get my packages etc. in a distribox. This has the advantage that a base system update cannot destroy my development setup in an inconvenient moment like some days before release. Because Silver blue is image based it is rock solid. So I get the advantages of both world. I use it to install a special image for Davinci Resolve. That makes the installation very easy.

[Malsabku]

What is the difference to Toolbox?

[milo_hoffman]

What is the difference to Toolbox?

Toolbox is a limited Fedora-only wrapper around distrobox. Not sure why Fedora just did not use distrobox like everyone else.

[Estranged1906]

What is the difference to Toolbox?

Toolbox is like MS Notepad while Distrobox is like Kate.

There is no reason for anyone to use Toolbox. At this point Fedora Atomic is just keeping Toolbox due to NIY syndrome. (Though I admit Toolbox might have been first, I don't know!)