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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Distrobox allows you to run the userland of a different distro in a container, like Docker.
Different than Docker, the container sees your /home and talks to your local display server.
As an example, you can enter an Arch Linux Distrobox on another distro (say Debian) on the command line. You are now in an Arch terminal. You can run pacman for example and install software from the Arch repos or the AUR. If it is GUI software, you can launch it and it shows up as a regular window in your display. And if you want to load or save files, the /home you see is the real one from your host system.
What is cool is that you can run Distrobox-export inside Distrobox to export an application to your host. It will create an entry in the app menu of your host desktop environment (eg. KDE). Once you have done that, you can launch the application anytime and it will just run and appear on your screen like any other application. Except, under the hood, it is really running in a container on top ot the userland of a different distro.
You can think of it like Flatpak but where you can install the apps from a real Linux distro and not just FlatHub.
So you can run Fedora KDE and use an Ubuntu Distrobox to run those missing apps that are keeping you on Ubuntu. Be free.
I mentioned Arch as I often use Distrobox to get access to the AUR on other distros. For example, I use Chimera Linux which uses MUSL instead of Glibc. If there is something that would not run on MUSL, I can just install it via Distrobox instead (which will run that app on Glibc on my otherwise MUSL system).
But you can use whatever Distro you want. I could be installing Fedora packages instead. Or maybe you are forced to use Arch but hate all the up to date packages. You could use Distrobox to install all the Debian ones instead.
You can mix and match if you want. You can use Distrobox for more than one Distro.
Or you can create a Distrobox for a specific purpose. Love Mint but need to develop apps for RHEL? Run RHEL in a Distrobox and do your dev there.
Mostly I use the packages from my distro. But if something is missing, or the version is too old, Distrobox to the rescue.