Linux containers have made it reasonably easy to develop, distribute, and deploy server applications along with all the distribution dependencies that they need. For example, anyone can deploy and run a Debian-based PostgreSQL container on a Fedora Linux host. Distrobox is a project that is designed to bring the cross-distribution compatibility to the desktop and allow users to mix-and-match Linux distributions without fussing with dual-booting, virtual machines, or multiple computers. It is an ideal way to install additional software on image-based systems, such as Fedora’s Atomic Desktops or Bazzite, and also provides a convenient way to move a development environment or favorite applications to a new system.
Distrobox creator Luca Di Maio was inspired by the Toolbx project (formerly Container Toolbox) for Fedora. Generally, the idea with Linux containers is to run processes in their own environment to isolate them as much as possible from the host without having to resort to virtual machines with their additional overhead. It is possible, though, to set up a container to give it privileged access to the system with little to no isolation. This is typically referred to as a privileged container. It is possible to set up privileged containers manually, but it requires the user to know a great deal about working with containers and some fairly involved setup. The original goal for Toolbx was to let users run a privileged container “toolbox” on image-based systems that could be used for system administration and troubleshooting without having to include administration utilities in the image itself.
This is an LWN Subscriber link I provided from my personal subscription, if you like this kind of content from them I’d like to encourage you to subscribe to one of their plans and support them, the cheapest one is just 5$/month
This is a dramatically misinformed comment. You have clearly never used Distrobox.
The first bullet is the worst. This is like saying that Flatpak will break your host. It will not break the host OS. Learn what a container is.
It is not tools on top of tools. It is tools in a container that you can optionally create entries for in your app menu. Apps in the container execute directly on the host kernel in the container. If you are in a shell, you are either in the container or out and the full environment will reflect that.
It is not for “new users”. That said it dramatically simplifies many intermediate ones and make some advanced things possible. Once again though, there are no “stacks on stacks”.
The exact opposite. Containers do not change the host. If something goes wrong in the container, you can purge it completely without impacting the host.
In fact, one of my core uses for Distrobox is to keep my host system clean. I use Distrobox to setup dev environments, to try out new software, to work around Distro constraints, and a host of other tasks. It is great.
There seems to be quite a fundamental misunderstanding of what a container is. Everything runs directly on the host kernel. Apps outside the container run on the host OS and do not interact with the container. Apps in the container run in the environment inside the container. The only interaction apps in the container have with the host is the kernel, the filesystem, and via servers like Wayland, Pipewire, and XDG portals.
The entire point of a container is to create an application environment that looks exactly like an application expects regardless of system it is running on. It is clean and consistent between deployment. This is the exact opposite of what the above comment implies.
In practice, it “feels” like apps in Distrobox are running native on the host OS but in fact everything above the kernel is running inside the container and each container is distinct from the others.
The “example” is totally wrong. GCC is either on the host or it is not (from the host). GCC is either in the container or it is not. They do not interfere with each other. They do not even share C libraries. However, the can see the same source files.
Distrobox is absolutely nothing like Homebrew. Homebrew is a package manager. If you are using a package manager in Distrobox, it will be the one intended to work with whatever distro you are running in Distrobox. This is a fantastic illustration of the confusion of ideas at work here.
If you have to compare Dostrobox to something, compare it to Flatpak.