I have been using Linux on various machines, alongside Windows and MacOS, for over 15 years now. That's kinda crazy to think about - I'm not as old as that statement makes me sound!
And while I was aware of the existence of projects like Fedora Silverblue and how great atomic, immutable desktops can be, especially for developers, I never really felt the pull to install one and run it as my main desktop OS.
I have used an immutable desktop OS before on the Steam Deck, I'm familiar with containerization technologies like Docker and I've even had a multiple-month-long affair with NixOS. Heck, on most days I think Flatpaks are okay.
Learning a new OS comes with its own quirks. For Atomic desktops like Silverblue, I believe the biggest one has to do with package management.
Up until now, I relied on installing all the software I needed in Silverblue through Flatpak. But today I wanted to remake my vimrc and realized that Silverblue ships with vim-minimal, which doesn't include documentation and vimtutor.
So here's the dilemma, either install vim-enhanced via rpm-ostree or try out this not-so new piece of technology called Toolbx.
Toolbx is built on top of containerization tools like Podman, and it's mostly aimed at developers. According to Fedora's own documentation1, "[Toolbx] keeps the host OS clean and stable, and helps to avoid the clutter that can happen after installing lots of development tools and packages."
I like the sound of that.
Each toolbox container features:
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Your existing username and permissions.
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Access to your home directory and several other locations.
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Access to both system and session D-Bus, system journal and Kerberos.
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Common command lines tools, including a package manager (e.g., DNF on Fedora).
First, I run toolbox create.
cfs@thinkpad:~$ toolbox create
Image required to create Toolbx container.
Download registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora-toolbox:43 (357.1MB)? [y/N]:
As I didn't specific any other distribution, it prompted me to download an image for Fedora 43. By default, Toolbx downloads an "OCI image if one isn't available"1 and it should match the host system. If there is no matching image, it downloads a Fedora image.
After the download is done, I get the following message:
Created container: fedora-toolbox-43
Enter with: toolbox enter
Before proceeding, I run toolbox list - works as expected, lists local toolbx images and containers.
IMAGE ID IMAGE NAME CREATED
4e60401c9386 registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora-toolbox:43 13 hours ago
CONTAINER ID CONTAINER NAME CREATED STATUS IMAGE NAME
5331bbbbde92 fedora-toolbox-43 2 minutes ago created registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora-toolbox:43
toolbox enter prints a welcome message and changes my bash prompt, to signal I am now inside a container. Nice.
Running ls shows all folders and files inside my home folder. I'm impressed. Also the memory and CPU usage do not seem to go up by a significant amount, which is vital to me on this Thinkpad T430s with 8GB RAM.
I can now run dnf update and dnf search vim-enhanced and... I get a match!
Updating and loading repositories:
Fedora 43 openh264 (From Cisco) - x86_64 100% | 12.2 KiB/s | 5.8 KiB | 00m00s
Fedora 43 - x86_64 - Updates 100% | 3.2 MiB/s | 12.4 MiB | 00m04s
Fedora 43 - x86_64 100% | 4.6 MiB/s | 35.4 MiB | 00m08s
Repositories loaded.
Matched fields: name (exact)
vim-enhanced.x86_64 A version of the VIM editor which includes recent enhancements
Then it's just a matter of running sudo dnf install vim-enhanced and I'm ready to run good ol' Vim!
Toolbx seems to integrate well with Ptyxis. It is being promoted as a container centric terminal emulator after all.
I now have the option to open a new tab directly on my container, a la Windows Terminal and WSL.
Not all distros are shipping this by default yet, but I believe this to be only a matter of time. I much prefer Ptyxis to gnome-terminal, and even though I have dabbled with Alacritty, I find no reason to use it as my main terminal app.