I like the builtin fedora and ubuntu containers It’s really convenient to have them just a key stroke away with ctrl+alt+f or ctrl+alt+u. However, I was surprised to learn that they don’t seem to persist any data between reboots. Installed packages and so on disappear when i reboot my computer or restart their respective systemd service.
Why this behaviour? Are they not meant to be used as pet containers? To me, coming from Silverblue, naming them -toolbox implies functionality and purpose similar to toolbx, the whole point of which is long-lived pet containers.
You can add a declarative config to those if you want in /etc/distrobox/distrobox.ini or you can make a pet container via boxbuddy and assign that to a keyboard shortcut.
Alright, thanks for clarifying, I see it’s all explained it the docs there. I still think the names including -toolbox is misleading, but maybe that’s just me and I don’t know what to call them instead.
how can i get rid of the two toolboxes?
I dont need them because i dont run any development stuff just normal browsing and desktop things
I would like them go away so they dont update everytime want to update my system
I was wondering about this, glad I found the answer here. I did have another one related to these ephemeral containers though!
Is there any good way I can give these individual home directories so they don’t litter the Host’s home? Based on an earlier message it seems I could do it in /etc/distrobox/distrobox.ini
I then ran the following to remove the existing container and start a new one: distrobox assemble rm --file /etc/distrobox/distrobox.ini distrobox assemble create --replace --file /etc/distrobox/distrobox.ini --name fedora-toolbox
This created the desired folder, /var/home/ryan/fedora-toolbox, and it acted as the home dir. Upon using Ctrl + Alt + F to run the quadlet, the container restarted and no longer used /var/home/ryan/fedora-toolbox as the home dir.
I looked further into this and it seems like there’s been a number of issues with Ptyxis profiles and the ephemeral distroboxes recently - I think I’ll just set this up with some pet ones instead. Using distrobox assemble to reset them when something gets borked is easy enough haha
Yeah we are working on just removing the entire setup. New users tend to footgun with them and pros just have their own setups.
These were made for a time when we were demoing a bunch and the “fire up ubuntu terminal” tended to resonate with people. Though with more people coming on board it’s easier for us to just ship everything stock and blank so you can make your own decisions. Also our distroboxes are listed in boxbuddy so the discoverability is nicer.
The quadlets and other bits will remain in the ublue-os/toolboxes repo if anyone wants to set them up.