I am running Chimera Linux which I really love for a bunch of reasons. I have a need to run a few applications that are not going to work with MUSL, and are not presently offered via flatpak. Thus, containers I think are my go-to. II was thinking of spinning up a minimal Void linux to use these apps. I don’t have experience running containers at this point and have struggled to understand how to interact with them.
I like simple, and Chimera offers the following solutions -
- Containerd
- Podman
- Bubble wrap
- Chroot
I am pretty sure I can get away with a terminal only setup for these apps, but what if I need a GUI? Is there a good choice among these for security? Resources are not at a premium on my laptop. What do you prefer and why?
TIA!
I usually spin up a distrobox container of Arch for anything I need that I don’t want to, or can’t compile myself. Both CLI and GUI programs work, and you can use podman as the backend.
If you are building apps from source, consider creating an actual Chimera Linux apk. It is surprisingly easy. I like keeping everything under the control of the package manager.
That is assuming you are a Chimera Linux user of course.
My main distro these days is Gentoo, but I definitely feel the same. I’ll write an ebuild anytime it’s feasible, and Gentoo has some pretty great tools for helping me keep up with updates for things.
I just looked, and Chimera also offers distrobox. I didn’t have the need to really use it yet, but it sounds like it would be the best because of its desktop integration.
I also use Chimera!
As everybody else is saying, Distrobox is the way to go and it is already in the repos (using Podman). It works amazingly. I setup an Arch Distrobox so now I have Chimera + the AUR which is just perfection for me. I still use native Chimera when possible and have created quite a few of my own packages. Sometimes I use Distrobox just to check something out and then create a native package later when I have time.
doas apk add distrobox
distrobox create —name arch —image docker.io/library/archlinux:latest
distrobox enter arch
That is all you have to do (though you have to add yay or paru inside Arch to use the AUR). You will be in an Arch console and have access to all Arch software.
Distrobox create seems a bit slow setting up overlayfs for some reason but it runs stellar after the first time.
If you really prefer Void…
dostrobox create —name void —image ghcr.io/void-linux/void-glibc-full:latest
Flatpak works as well if that is your thing (as you say). prefer Distrobox.
I realized just yesterday that Chimera comes with Broadcom WiFi drivers right in the kernel (no DKMS or CKMS required). Just download firmware with b43-cutter (also included). So I have dropped Chimera on a couple older MacBooks. I put it on an old 2009 MacBook Pro yesterday and 100% of the hardware is supported (Ethernet, WiFi, Camera, Audio, brightness and volume controls, sleep, everything ). I did a video meeting on it just for fun and nobody even noticed (the camera sucks in low light but that is hardware). Honestly, I cannot believe how well it runs. For basic office stuff, you would never know (unless you looked at CPU utilization—which will be high!).
Chimera Linux is still in beta but it already feels rock solid. I am so impressed with it as a distro. And the only downside is totally mitigated by Distrobox.
Enjoy!
[edit: I never answers “why” I guess. Distrobox uses Podman so it is amazingly light on resources. The app will run right on the Chimera kernel. What Distrobox adds is persistence and tight integration. By persistence I mean that changes you make in the Distrobox (like installing software) will be there the next time you enter. By integration, I mean that you see your normal /home and have direct access to hardware. It does not even feel like your app is in a container. GUI apps “just work” out-of-the-box. Type the name of a GUI app and it pops up in your native Wayland session. It is even possible to create desktop links so individual apps can be started point and click without having to go into the terminal. It is like magic.]
Thanks to all for the responses… and thanks for this detailed response. I have a habit of making simple things complicated… Which it looks like I did in this case.
I also completely agree on Chimera. It’s such a solid distro.
Check out distrobox. Basically podman or docker containers, but automatically more integrated into the host system. GUI programs work pretty much out of the box with it.