Install a containerized Linux with Distrobox
One for All
© Photo by Rawpixel on Unsplash
Distrobox uses Docker, Podman, or Lilipod to bundle several distributions in a single container.
Testing distributions is part and parcel of everyday life for many developers, and some people even enjoy distro hopping as a hobby. The easiest approach to living life with multiple distributions is virtualization. There are various ways of running distributions in virtual environments. Options include hypervisors such as VMware, VirtualBox, KVM/Qemu, Gnome boxes, and Proxmox. Network-Attached Storage (NAS) systems such as Unraid and TrueNAS can also function as virtualization platforms for operating virtual machines (VMs) via a web interface.
Distrobox [1] is yet another option that lets you use any Linux distribution from inside your terminal. Introduced in 2021 and maintained by Luca Di Maio, Distrobox uses Fedora's toolbx utility [2] as a template. You can even use Distrobox with BoxBuddy [3] if you prefer working with a graphical user interface (GUI).
Distrobox styles itself as the Swiss Army knife of the distribution scene. Developers and package maintainers can use Distrobox containers to quickly test their applications on various distributions. Assuming you use Debian as your host system and have installed Arch Linux in Distrobox, you can test your packages not only against Arch Linux, but also against Debian, Fedora, SUSE, and many other distributions.
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