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1 • Distrobox (by Andy Prough on 2022-02-21 01:51:49 GMT from United States)
Hi Jesse, Distrobox sounds intriguing. It sounds similar to Bedrock Linux, except with easily disposable containers for quickly using one small set of applications for a short period of time. I need to give it a try - I've been using Bedrock daily since you wrote about how to use it last year and it's been just incredible.
Can you talk about some of the applications you used, and about how thoroughly they seemed to integrate with the host OS? I'm assuming you had networking, but were you able to print, or to open files from the host directory, or save files to host folders? Did you try any multimedia applications, and were they able to use the host's sound and video systems?
2 • Distrobo (by Jesse on 2022-02-21 02:07:45 GMT from Canada)
@1: >> "Can you talk about some of the applications you used, and about how thoroughly they seemed to integrate with the host OS?"
They seem to integrate entirely.
>> " I'm assuming you had networking,"
I did.
>> "but were you able to print"
Hard to tell, I've hardly printed anything in the past 15 years. I don't own a printer.
>> "or to open files from the host directory, or save files to host folders? "
As I wrote in the review: "Distrobox guests have access to the host distribution's filesystem, including our home directory. Distrobox allows us to install packages in a contained environment, but it doesn't wall them off from the host operating system or our files."
>> " Did you try any multimedia applications, and were they able to use the host's sound and video systems?"
I didn't try any multimedia applications. Media applications usually don't need to be imported through a guest OS given their nature. Since the guest has full filesystem access to the host it should be easy enough to access the sound card.
3 • Distrobox Question (by Adam Drake on 2022-02-21 02:39:20 GMT from United States)
Is there any type of network gateway between the host and the guest or do apps running in distrobox use the host network connection directly?
4 • "However, the documentation hasn't been fleshed out." (by nooneatall on 2022-02-21 02:45:58 GMT from United States)
This I always find incomprehensible about Linux. Smart people spends hundreds of hours writing complex software, then expect mere "users" to A) know instinctively what it does and why they want it, and B) how to use it.
[It's not unique to Linux: I looked at hundreds of shareware programs in the DOS era. Potential users must be told WHAT for motivation, but even this most basic "selling point" is often vague to non-existent!]
Even given the WHAT, I'd never figure out the HOW though only a few simple steps that Jesse covers. (4K of text including explaining, copied/pasted to a file to get accurate byte count.)
Surely 4K of text isn't "making it TOO EASY" for users, it's simply necessary if want people to use your work!
5 • Distrobox (by Jesse on 2022-02-21 03:24:00 GMT from Canada)
@3: >> "Is there any type of network gateway between the host and the guest or do apps running in distrobox use the host network connection directly?"
It might help to check out the project's description of itself: 'This image is used to create a container that seamlessly integrates with the rest of the operating system by providing access to the user's home directory, the Wayland and X11 sockets, networking, removable devices (like USB sticks), systemd journal, SSH agent, D-Bus, ulimits, /dev and the udev database, etc...'
Basically the guest applications can access just about everything on the host directly.
6 • Distrobox (by penguinx86 on 2022-02-21 03:26:32 GMT from United States)
I have never used Distrobox, but I use Virtualbox all the time. It sure beats burning lots of CD/DVD's or putting images on USB flash drives and installing a new OS every time I want to try something new. Many times, installing new distros are incompatible with the Wifi adapter in my laptop, then I have to reinstall my old OS again. OS's that don't support Wifi are virtually useless these days! Some distros support my Wifi at first, then it dies after the first update. What a hassle! Now I stick with Linux Mint as my main OS because it ALWAYS works with my Wifi adapter.
I use Virtualbox to try new stuff without hosing my laptops Wifi. Virtualbox seems to provide a good hardware compatibility layer, where just about everything works virtually. Instead of Wifi, Virtualbox uses a virtual LAN for the guest OS. Sometimes I run into display resolution issues between Virtual box and new distros, but at least there is SOME video. Usually the Guest Additions ISO has a driver to fix the display resolution.
My laptop has an older Core i3 dual core processor, 8gb of RAM and 256gb SSD. That's usually enough to run 1 or 2 guest OS's at the same time in Virtualbox for testing. For testing purposes, most distros seem to run ok with 2gb of RAM and 20gb of storage in Virtualbox. So running Debian and Fedora at the same time in Virtualbox works ok with no load for example.
7 • distrobox (by gelu on 2022-02-21 03:58:18 GMT from Moldova)
I think that distrobox is an overkill, it is like using an airbus A380 for weekly journey to food mall, instead of a car,
I think that snap is good enough for such use case, when you need a newer version of an app.
while you stay on aging 20.04 ubuntu or debian.
8 • The poll -- Distrobox (by Andy Figueroa on 2022-02-21 04:15:43 GMT from United States)
What about the option 5) I have not tried it and might.
9 • DistroBox (by w Cairns on 2022-02-21 05:01:42 GMT from United States)
There is a list of distros that have been tested and to be working on the DistroBox Github page: https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/blob/main/docs/compatibility.md#containers-distros
10 • The BSD's (by Matt on 2022-02-21 06:02:58 GMT from United States)
I read the question re: the BSD's and dragonfly/hammerfs.
I know less about Dragonfly, but if you have a spare laptop, especially an older thinkpad, trying out the BSD family of operating systems is actually pretty easy imo. OpenBSD is actually very well supported on that brand of laptops, it just takes a little while to get used to how they do things. I would categorize the 3 major BSD's this way:
FreeBSD: the most popular and of the three. The best hardware support, good documentation and a handbook, and the biggest community if you need help. Capable of being used as a desktop/workstation/server. ZFS, jails, linux emulation, poudriere.....also driven by what the core team wants. The project doesn't change as quickly as a linux can, and this can be a good thing.
OpenBSD: has a focus on security. Great for firewalls, servers, and for workstation if you want to set it up for that. Extremely quick and easy to install if you stick with the defaults. Limited in other ways. Possibly the best man pages of any Linux/BSD I've ever seen.
NetBSD: known for it's portability. Great for embedded devices, but can be used as a server, desktop/workstation, whatever you want. PKGSRC is an incredible tool that can be used on other OS's as well. Smaller but very welcoming community.
11 • poll option 5 (by AndyBananas on 2022-02-21 07:52:17 GMT from United States)
I agree with Andy Figueroa, another option would have been helpful.
For me this is a quite often annoyance with these polls, they assume that we all have opinions already, even when we are just learning about new distros or software that we have had no experience with.
Just a friendly suggestion, add a sort of "maybe" option in these polls. Thanks!
12 • Distrobox (by 89luca89 on 2022-02-21 09:17:02 GMT from Italy)
Hi Jesse, thanks for the review
I've opened an issue to keep track of the improvements in usability suggested by your review:
https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/issues/177
13 • Poll option 5 --> 3 (by MCBuhl on 2022-02-21 09:34:54 GMT from Germany)
I fully understand and second this "maybe" and, more importantly, that I'm too missing one iron in the poll quite often ...
In today's poll however, I didn't feel bad to choose option 3, although "plan to" is a bit a of a strong word for "considering to check it out one day".
14 • Poll option 5 --> 3 correction (by MCBuhl on 2022-02-21 09:37:56 GMT from Germany)
Iron? Option!
15 • Distrobox (by Terryn Serge on 2022-02-21 10:22:04 GMT from Belgium)
What you do is running docker. If you used to be working with docker, we know that we must be in the docker group. We also know that you must stop container before you can remove it. Docker basic knowledge. What systems can you run ? Easy, goto https://hub.docker.com/ and search your distro. arch:latest is what it is, the latest official image from Arch. You want ubuntu, try ubuntu:latest to get the latest LTS version. ubuntu;21.04 will pull that version, etc ....
De nice thing is that you only need 1 container and distrobox uses the installed x11 or wayland on the host system. Otherwise on docker you need a specific docker images to launch an x11 server.
It's a nice tool to play with it. If it can also run database dockers or web dockers ...
16 • Package database (by Vuk on 2022-02-21 10:44:52 GMT from Serbia)
It's sad that mpv is still not in the package list and MPlayer is, which is quite obsolete
17 • Developers won't document (by Appalachian on 2022-02-21 12:11:36 GMT from United States)
I got my start in technical work at a place which made large, electrical equipment. Over the years I worked my way into companies which made electronic devices, and I found myself testing those devices and their related code.
By far, the most surprising part of this move was the relationship between software developers and their code. Here you have people who are quite eager to sit a computer and type to make a program, but those same people simply will NOT sit at that same computer and type out instructions on what their precious little project does. As #4 said above, it seems like the rest of us are just supposed to know everything about what a program does and how it does whatever function it performs. Oh, if only we were as enlightened as the developers are...
It isn't even limited to finished products. I've seen more than one program where the only use of comments was to take out large blocks of code, without any hint as to what that code did, why it was commented out, or why it wasn't simply deleted if it wasn't needed.
For every Arch wiki out there, you'll find dozens of projects with poor, outdated, or non-existent documentation. It seems that Distrobox is just another entry in the poorly documented crowd. Since that's the case, I'll just stick with VirtualBox. It may be a slower alternative, but at least I don't need to consult a medium to figure out how to set it up.
18 • Documentation (by 89luca89 on 2022-02-21 13:16:02 GMT from Italy)
I just wanted to inform that the documentation is present:
https://distrobox.privatedns.org
https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/tree/main/docs
What it was missing was pointing the user to it (either man page command or linking it)
But it's present and quite complete (always possible to improve obviously)
19 • Improvements (by 89luca89 on 2022-02-21 13:30:35 GMT from Italy)
Anyway if anyone has some time and wants to suggest improvements for the usability of this program, I've opened an issue in the github bug tracker to tackle usability improvements:
https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/issues/177
I've already implemented quite a few of them:
Add a way to consult the compatibility table from distrobox itself
Detect if we're running as sudo and point the user to the documentation if that's the case
Improve the installer to create the dest_path if not exists
Improve the installer informing the user to add dest_path to their $PATH
Improve the error messages for missing container_manager and point out to the docs in case of missing one
Improve the error messages in distrobox rm when container is running, suggesting the podman/docker command to run to stop it
They should already cover the usability bugs that Jesse encountered, but if there are others just open new issues and they'll be fixed
20 • "Jim, I'm a coder, not a tech writer.' (by Friar Tux on 2022-02-21 13:43:55 GMT from Canada)
@17, et al... coders do what they do best. As do tech writers. Most of the documentation written about any bit of software, in most cases, was not written by the coder. That job was either taken up by the community that developed around that bit of software, or, in the case of the bigger, enterprise type/run programs, by a paid writer. To the complaint of "how are we supposed to know", I would point to the intuitiveness of most modern software. Most folks, today, when entering an automobile/office suite/program, will intuitively know how to manoeuvre it - though maybe not expertly. In the case of distrobox, most folks realize from the start that it is container/virtual image software. Experimentation will teach the rest - as is true with all thing Linux. So my challenge would be that instead of ranting about the lack of documentation, take up the pen/keyboard and write what documentation you feel is needed. Start something good.
21 • Documentation help (by 89luca89 on 2022-02-21 14:03:38 GMT from Italy)
@20 thanks
As stated the documentation is ready to use both in the man pages and in the project page
I think this was more a discoverability problem (the author did not find the available docs) more than a scarcity of them
But community help is always warmly welcomed :-)
22 • Distrobox (by Otis on 2022-02-21 14:35:02 GMT from United States)
One thing's for sure: There is always something to learn about here. I confess to never having heard or read of Distrobox. I voted in the poll that I have not tried and and don't plan to.. but I will look into it more and keep up with it as I am wondering if it is something with enough of a substantial usefulness that it'll be discussed and used more and more like so many other things that've come along in the linux ecosystem.
23 • Coding (by cor on 2022-02-21 14:45:13 GMT from United States)
Document your own code, do not rely on others. It is lazy and arrogant to not provide documentation for something you coded.
24 • @20 FriarTux: (by dragonmouth on 2022-02-21 15:40:29 GMT from United States)
Must disagree with you. I spent close to 30 years coding and developing software. Nobody knows a particular piece of software better than the coder. Therefore it should be the coder who writes the instructions for an application.
"Most folks, today, ..... will intuitively know how to maneuver it"
Congratulations on being so perspicacious. After having dealt with non-IT users for over 30 years, I can tell you that statement is not true. Many, if not most, users need to be led by the hand. The only users that "intuitively knew how to maneuver it" were other programmers, coders, software developers and techies.
25 • Communication from the app writer to the end-user (by Ted H in Minnesota on 2022-02-21 17:04:49 GMT from United States)
I'm a bit of a tech writer, reviewer, etc. (And I like to make suggestions to improve software and other things, but usually there is no direct way to reach the author/ceator.)
Anyway, My feeling is that technicians often/usually don't know how to communicate what they know to the end user - starting with what the newbie would want to know about using the software/product/whatever. The software creator knows what it does, and tends to assume that it would also be obvious to whoever uses the software/ product/etc. The old assumption that "what I know, everyone knows, don't they?"! Well, we don't. Explain it to us.
Ted H
26 • Documenting code (by Robert on 2022-02-21 17:04:59 GMT from United States)
The problem with coders doing their own documentation is the curse of knowledge. I'm sure they could write their own documentation targeting other coders, and they probably should. Many probably could reach an audience of technical, but non-coder users. But it takes skill to write instructions for the type of user that gets lost with more than 2 or 3 applications open. That user is surprisingly common, and a lot of (most?) knowledgeable people cannot comprehend that lack of understanding
27 • I forgot to mention (by Ted H on 2022-02-21 17:26:19 GMT from United States)
I forgot to mention the equally important thing for the developer/coder to explain:
Not only what it does but HOW TO USE IT!
TED
28 • Lazy Paranoia (by Joe on 2022-02-21 20:45:57 GMT from United States)
I tend to like completely separate playgrounds e.g. VMs and the like, rather than something like Distrobox, as unless I decide to invest what I deem a satisfactory amount of time looking into it, I'm a bit too paranoid that I'd be tainting or somehow otherwise compromising my daily driver. Anyone else bias this way? I suppose I should just unlazy and setup a playground partition.
With @18 information helpfully posted though, I'll be doing some perusing.
@7, every time I think of snap, I think of this article.
https://ludocode.com/blog/flatpak-is-not-the-future
29 • distrobox on Fedora (by Scott Dowdle on 2022-02-22 00:30:39 GMT from United States)
There was an article about Distrobox posted on Fedora Magazine a while ago and that's how I learned about it. I've been using it for easy access to Arch packages on Fedora. One package in particular that Arch packages that Fedora/rpmfusion do not currently... is av1an. Since I'm running Distrobox on Fedora, I'm using podman rather than Docker... and it seems to work quite well.
30 • Re lack of documentation (by Lost in Documentation on 2022-02-22 02:12:31 GMT from Canada)
An additional suggestion re documentation:
Many of us have limited internet access &/or spend time working offline.
Many projects seem to depend on wiki style pages for their documentation, which simply does not work for us.
Assuming you ALREADY have some documentation available, make it available as a pdf, zip, tgz, whatever, for offline study; but don't hold us hostage to staying online having to traverse wikipages.
As examples, the Python makes the documentation readily downloadable in multiple formats. MX-Linux makes the manual available right on the desktop so it is available even for offline work. GIMP has a downloadable handbook. FreeBSD has extensive, downloadable documentation.
I'm not suggesting banning wikipages. Just saying there are situations where it's not practical or helpful.
Was just looking at EasyOS the other day. Very nice documentation, but you end up jumping all over the place to read it. Perfect example of you have the documentation sitting right there. Why not provide an option to download the whole thing as a pdf?
Not everyone wants to spend their time constantly online. Better to capture what you need, then cut the cord.
And don't even get me started on those who so need to be on full time that everything (PC, printer, scanner, baby monitor, doorbell camera, etc.) has to be on full time wireless. Not suggesting we go back to rotary phones. But beware those who want to live in the cloud and do everything online to the extent they want to live in virtual worlds. We have enough problems in the "real" world. I try to solve mine in the real world with offline documentation.
Hopefully have made a case without starting any flame wars.
Hmmm, the "onliners vs. the offliners". Sci-Fi movie potential? I'm not asking for any royalties.....
31 • The BSD's (by Tech in San Diego on 2022-02-23 00:47:33 GMT from United States)
I've been using Linux for several years now and I'm always amazed at how much I don't know about the benefits of the BSD operating system. I greatly appreciate all you do for the Linux community and the resources you put into each and every review.
32 • ports (by Trihexagonal on 2022-02-23 02:43:02 GMT from United States)
I taught myself to use ports as a PC-BSD user in 2005 and had never used the pkg system to build a desktop until last year.
The FreeBSD Base System not having third-party programs bundled with it, everything built after installation of the Base System being done through ports or pre-complied ports through the pkg system.
When working with ports I use portmaster to build them. it will pull in a list of all dependencies to be compiled and present you with a list for your approval prior to continuing with the build.
Unless there is a conflict that requires my intervention or it asks whether I want to keep or delete an old program it is hands free and very reliable.
Albeit, much slower than using the pkg system. I can do with pkg in 2-3 hours what it takes me 24 hours to compile with ports. However, you can choose options for each program before the start of the build with ports and cannot with pkg.
I have a Beginners Tutorial with a target audience of someone who has never used the command line that takes you from installation of the Base System to a Fluxbox desktop using ports to compile third party programs:
https://trihexagonal.org/
You can substitute pkg for ports, bypass the hand-holding and still use the outline. I include System and Security files that require editing after you hit the desktop and a pf firewall ruleset for general desktop activities and a modified version for people who use a printer.
33 • @28, paranoia, and Appimages vs others (by Dr.Hu on 2022-02-23 03:29:29 GMT from Philippines)
@28, Like you, I keep play and secure work separate by using VMs, but I do the reverse. My daily drivers are my playground. Anything requiring security is done in separate VMs. Nothing lives in my home partition that can't be easily replaced. I dual boot, so if one root system gets borked, I can boot into the other and reinstall. So I'll probably give Distrobox a try one of these days, although I doubt I'll find any real use for it.
On the article you link to: "AppImage, to its credit, technically does not require a service to run apps, but it doesn’t integrate with the desktop without it. I needed to use an AppImage app for a while and my solution was to just leave it in my ~/Downloads folder and double click it from my file manager to run it. This is a terrible user experience." THis is not so. The article seemed a well-reasoned argument, and I'd normally bow to superior knowledge, but the paragraph above bugged me. I run a Chromium AppImage on Ubuntu Jammy in my home partition, and it's quite simple to integrate. Al it requires is a desktop file pointing to it, and an icon. It even does the theming properly. No launchers or anything else required. As for bloat, as he claims; I also run Firefox on the same folder, extracted directly from a tarball. Firefox uses 223 MB of storage , while the Chromium AppImage only uses 130 MB. So much for bloat. It still may be a great article, but missing something that simple makes me question if his premises and conclusions need closer examination both for knowledge and bias. it would take more time and knowledge than I posses.
34 • AppImage (by Friar Tux on 2022-02-23 04:29:09 GMT from Canada)
@33 (Dr Hu) Of the three (Snaps, Flatpak, and AppImage) I strongly prefer and recommend AppImage. On my machine it seems to use the least resources, it picks up the desktop theme quite nicely, and it works flawlessly. The other two, again on my machine, use there own themes, occasionally don't launch, and also occasionally quit. There are other issues, but these three are the worst. (My machine is a stock HP Pavilion laptop running Linux Mint/Cinnamon.)
35 • BSD (by John on 2022-02-23 08:30:40 GMT from United States)
Nice BSD review.
Based on your encouragement, I have loaded and tried several BSD versions.
Gave up on all so far !!!!
Biggest problem was I couldn't examine and modify BSD file systems from Linux. So I couldn't figure out how to fix simple configuration problems.
I want to load a 'live' BSD from SD card so I don't nuke my working Linux system.
I am doing this now on this Toshiba laptop with an old fast version of AntiX.
Works great. VERY reliable and easy to really backup to USB hard drive.
John
36 • Distrobox and Docker (by far2fish on 2022-02-23 08:52:48 GMT from Denmark)
Docker is king, and I have used it daily for years. However I have yet not had any use case where I needed to run graphical applications inside it. If I did, I sure would have had a good look it Distrobox. It sounds like a really cool project, but for my use cases I have all I need with the Docker CLI.
37 • BSD world (by Otis on 2022-02-23 13:55:22 GMT from United States)
@35 (and others) My forays into BSD have strongly mirrored my first steps into Linux many many years ago: Excitement.. Effort.. Failure.. Try another.. Lather.. Rinse,.. Repeat...
..and I'm still doing it, even though I have my Linux distro daily driver and a few others that are very reliable and in some ways compete with my favorite Linux distro for more usage.
Best I have worked with in the BSD world is GhostBSD, a work by a dedicated developer and a lot more by the GhostBSD community spinning more flavors for us to try. But I keep having to correct this or that issue having to do with hardware mostly, and I realize as I spend time with it that I need to get my Manjaro or MX or Artix or Suse back on the screen so I can get stuff done without interruption.
I've VERY glad BSD is here to stay and have high hopes that some day we'll see more of them move up into the top 10 PHR (go Ghost go!) and be discussed as much as the dozens of Linux distros.
38 • BSD (by Friar Tux on 2022-02-23 20:04:36 GMT from Canada)
@37 (Otis) Take heart... I have tried many times over the years to install the different BSD distros and have not yet managed to actually be able to start one up to test it. FreeBSD was the only one that installed but, on reboot, it presented me with a full screen terminal opened to some man pages (?). I could do nothing on screen. I'm a bit sticky about distros (Linux or other) working out-of-box so, to me, these were a fail. I'll continue trying them. Maybe, in a few years, when they catch up to Linux, they may start working. (Yes, I believe BSD is way behind, but, yes, I see potential.)
39 • distrobox (by Keith Bainbridge on 2022-02-23 23:51:11 GMT from Australia)
I don't know what this means, but when I run uname -a in my arch, I get
keith@arch Thu24Feb2022@10:49:31 :~$ uname -a
Linux arch.asus3 5.13.0-28-generic #31~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jan 19 14:08:10 UTC 2022 x86_64 GNU/Linux
keith@arch Thu24Feb2022@10:49:37 :~$ su
Password:
root@arch Thu24Feb2022@10:49:44 :/home/keith# uname -a
Linux arch.asus3 5.13.0-28-generic #31~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jan 19 14:08:10 UTC 2022 x86_64 GNU/Linux
root@arch Thu24Feb2022@10:49:47 :/home/keith# su keith
keith@arch Thu24Feb2022@10:49:54 :~$
If this is a separate OS running, how can I get my mint/buntu kernel?
Keith
40 • Down the Rabbit Hole (by Tech in San Diego on 2022-02-24 02:21:45 GMT from United States)
I re-read the article on BSD, with the ZFS filesystem, just to see how much additional resources it used compared to other filesystems used with BSD, (and Linux for that matter), and got sucked down the rabbit hole. What an informative and through explanation on the advantages of ZFS. After reading about ZFS I was curious to learn more and with all things Linux there are several alternatives available such as Btrfs for snapshots, XFS for large chunks of data, F2FS for NAND, EXT4 for general purpose and many other filesystems for specialized use cases.
I currently use Btrfs, which is the default filesystem for my distro, and enjoy the flexibility of taking snapshots on the fly, pooling, data integrity with self healing, and backup with compression just to name a few. Btrfs is supported on many major distributions such as Fedora, openSUSE. Arch and ReactOS to name a few.
I appreciate the author going into detail with links to additional information for those who don't just want the quick answer, but want to learn more detail.
41 • Take heart... (by Trihexagonal on 2022-02-24 10:09:38 GMT from United States)
@38 "FreeBSD was the only one that installed but, on reboot, it presented me with a full screen terminal opened to some man pages (?)."
What you saw was the MOTD displayed on the login terminal.
Directly below that was the login prompt where you enter your usr name and password.
I have all that in the Beginner's Tutorial I referenced, if you want to try it again:
"Now you're at the last screen of the build process. Exit and remove the installation media you used (CD, DVD, Flash drive) while it's restarting or it will loop back.
Now you're presented with a black screen which is our terminal. You've only installed the base system and no GUI or desktop have been installed at this point.
Log into your user account with the user name you chose and the password for it."
Just click on my name.
Or not.
42 • @38, Friar Tux, BSD (by Dr.Hu on 2022-02-24 13:02:01 GMT from Philippines)
I what you are looking for is BSD for the desktop, GhostBSD is the choice. Installs quicker and easier on VirtualBox than some Linux distros. I tried the XFCE version and it ran well. Bare metal, however, is a story out of the past.
I tried PC-BSD, quite a few years ago. I believe they used KDE then, before morphing into TrueOS, and into Linux.as Trident. It installed and worked well on my laptop, but no WiFi and no Touch-pad. GhostBSD is, in the words of Yogi Berra, deja vu all over again. Someone mentioned going down the rabbit hole, and that is fitting. Seems like they've run as fast as they can just to stay in the same place. So if you will run it on a desktop with wired network, go for it. It ain't bad. Wasn't then. Isn't now.
43 • distrobox added to Fedora and EPEL repositories (by Scott Dowdle on 2022-02-24 13:04:57 GMT from United States)
Just wanted to mention that distrobox has made it into the official Fedora repositories (F34 and F35) as well EPEL8 and EPEL9.
44 • GhostBSD (by Otis on 2022-02-24 14:52:06 GMT from United States)
@42 The current GhostBSD cannot see modern hardware I'm using, including my common network card (on live disc, cannot install because of that). I've tried the latest and the older downloads but since I got this new laptop I'm not able to install any BSD with success for that same reason. Once again, this whole thing reminds me of early Linux days.
But yes, I "take heart" and keep trying and... wait for new releases. Always will.
45 • Ghosted by BSD (by Friar Tux on 2022-02-24 15:36:58 GMT from Canada)
@44 (Otis) I believe you're right about the hardware issue. I installed GhostBSD, and on reboot, the mouse and keyboard did nothing. Could not type or move the cursor/pointer.
46 • BSD to Linux (by Otis on 2022-02-24 16:14:45 GMT from United States)
One very telling thing about the evolution of computing is that back when Linux was cutting its teeth for desktop/home users, Windows was the fallback to get things done until a distro might come along to cut the mustard. Now trying BSD has us falling back to our daily Linux driver; no Windows needed.
Yes, hardware diversity exposes how small the BSD developer pool is, so we have to wait, submit error/bug reports (that's vital in all this), and wait some more.
47 • distrobox (by mike r in colorado on 2022-02-24 16:36:40 GMT from United States)
What distrobox runs is the userland environment of the containerized OS. That's why Mr. Bainbridge (#39) sees an OS version different from what he is expecting. I find it to be a very useful tool on Fedora Silverblue to get access to applications that are not in the immutable OS or packaged as a flatpak. It runs a container, not a VM, so it's "sort of" the "guest" operating system.
One nice feature of distrobox is the "export" command which creates a user-specific .desktop file to kick off an application in the DBox container directly from the user's desktop environment.
48 • cursory timestamped basic help (by grindstone on 2022-02-24 18:05:24 GMT from United States)
+1 to the comment about including some amount of docs in txt pdf or whatever where practicable (ie not graphic-laden help). Note (and link) to the current/live versions, but PLEASE put a minimal copy of whatever you have as a text file. Years ago, downloading was more dear. Now, connectivity is Almost everywhere and the assumption to just link is surely "bell-curve functional". For those of us where bandwidth and connections are still iffy (and/or costly), we've hosed.
It's exactly like taking the extra time to cater to color-blind or otherwise limited people--super easy to begin with, but helpful for everyone.
49 • @33 (by Justin on 2022-02-24 20:20:05 GMT from United States)
If your host system is compromised, you cannot trust a VM. The VM is a process that runs on the host OS, and if that is untrustworthy, you cannot guarantee no interference/monitoring/compromise in the host processes.
For analogy, if someone has the keys to your house and can open any door or window, locking yourself in a room won't protect you from harm. They can still turn off your power at a breaker, tap into or shut off your water (you did lock yourself in with a bathroom, right?), adjust thermostats, and do any number of things to make your life miserable.
My suggestion would be to use a live CD on your machine for "secure" purposes (like banking) to better guarantee a clean system.
50 • @49, Justin, VM or Host (by @49, Justin, VM or Host on 2022-02-25 00:33:24 GMT from Philippines)
"My suggestion would be to use a live CD on your machine for "secure" purposes (like banking) to better guarantee a clean system." Now that is paranoia! Actually, for most banking I use Android since the banks provide apps. Great convenience! My banks are more likely to be compromised at the source, maybe from some bored office minion clicking on a payload and sharing the wealth.
Jesse wrote a piece the other week about security, which was pretty much on the money. In many years of running and working on Windows and Macs for myself and others, then going on to Linux, there has not been one single instance where my system was compromised, nor do I expect it to be. Sure, if someone with the skills and means were to want me badly, they can get me. Last year the FBI got somebody using Tails. But since I'm not much concerned with the FBI or any other powerful initials, I'll keep happily playing.
51 • 'distrobox' poll. (by R. Cain on 2022-02-25 17:50:41 GMT from United States)
Out of all the Linux users who read this venue, and not considering *any* individual multiple-votes or other forms of 'ballot-stuffing'---
1000 votes.
96% respond with, "I have not tried it...".
No further comment.
52 • "I have not tried it..." (by Otis on 2022-02-25 23:07:51 GMT from United States)
@51 This poll result could have been, and very likely has been, similar to many distros and other Linux software, programs, inits, etc over the years. And then the results change, if the poll were to be repeated. This distrobox thing is pretty new... perhaps there'll be a repeat of this poll at some point in the future. Perhaps not and we'll just see it grow in popularity. We do not know. Until then your point of "No further comment" seems premature at best, and perhaps pointless.
Number of Comments: 52
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