 So a few weeks ago I made a video about Disturbox and really we can only describe that video as gushing. I would say that I instantaneously became a fanboy of Disturbox and it really really showed in that video. I have since wrote blog posts about it. I did a Patreon exclusive podcast about Disturbox. I really like Disturbox and I'd actually say that I've become more of a fan of Disturbox since that video because I've learned more about it. So what I wanted to do today was kind of expand upon Disturbox just a little bit because in that video I really only talked about one use case. Now I talked about using applications and stuff like that inside of Disturbox but I really focused on being able to export a window manager that you installed inside of a Disturbox container and then run it on your host machine. That was the main purpose of that video. Today what I want to do is talk about five extra uses of Disturbox that I think kind of apply to a lot of people. So let's go ahead and jump in but before we do if you'd be so kind as to leave a thumbs up on this video I'd really appreciate it and really just help the channel. So let's go ahead and jump in. The first one and it's a simple one and a lot of these have to do with learning but we'll talk about that later. The first one is that Disturbox allows you to learn more about alternative package managers. So for example let's just say you've always been an Ubuntu guy, right? Every time you've ever used Linux or you've been using Linux for years all you've ever done is installed Ubuntu or Ubuntu based distros or Debian based distros if you want to go more broadly. And because that's true you don't have a lot of experience with other package managers. You don't know what is good about Pacman. You have never used Zipper or DNF or any of these other package managers and you want to give them a try but you don't want to leave your awesome Ubuntu installation that you've been using for years. I don't blame you so what you can do is you can install Disturbox. You can install an image of that particular distro that you want to learn about and you can go forth and learn about that package manager. Another thing that allows you to do is that it allows you to explore other distros package repositories. So for example, again, if you've always been an Ubuntu person you probably are very familiar with the Debian and Ubuntu repositories but you may not know what's so great about the AUR. You probably hear over and over again how awesome the AUR is. All these Arch fanboys are out there throwing up their pom poms talking about how great the AUR is. What's so great about it? I've never used it. Well, you can install Arch inside of a Disturbox container and then experience the AUR for yourself without having to nuke and pave your Ubuntu or Debian-based distro. You can just use it just like an Arch user would use it. It's really quite cool. So that was kind of a two-fer but the idea is that you can get really familiar with package managers and package repositories without having to leave your host system behind. So that's the first one. The second one is very related and that is that it allows you to test distros and packages. So if you are looking beyond the package manager and you want to experience how Arch truly runs or if you want to learn how, say, Gen2 actually functions, you can install Gen2 or if Arch in a Disturbox can experience at least a smidge of what those distributions are like. Now I know a lot of Gen2 users. Some of them are my dear friends and some of them are my trolls. Some of them are both trolls and friends. But I want to put this out there. Just because you've installed Gen2 in a Disturbox does not mean you've installed Gen2. You haven't truly experienced the installation of Gen2 until you've actually installed Gen2. So we just have to put that disclaimer in there. The installation of Gen2 is kind of the main point of Gen2 beyond the ability to use use flags. So we don't want to discount the fact that installing Gen2 is a task that a lot of people consider a sacred right. We don't want to, we don't want to downplay that. So we'll put that out there. But if you want to learn some things about Gen2, specifically things regarding the package management, the repositories, how you manage use flags, how you manage, how you manage the make.conf file and all this stuff post installation, installing it inside of Disturbox can get you a flavor of what running a Gen2 system would be like. Same thing with Arch, OpenSousa, whatever distro you want to try out, trying it out in a Disturbox container really can help you experience that distro or at least a taste of that distro before you go forth and install it on an actual hardware system. So that's the second one. The third one, and this one I think is the most important one, but I'm bearing it in the middle, is that it allows you to install software that isn't available on your distro. That's what I've primarily been using it for. And it's kind of similar to what I talked about in the last video I did on Disturbox where you can install a window manager that doesn't install well or at all on your distribution and then run it on your host machine. This is kind of similar only, it broadens it to literally every single application you could possibly want access to. So for example, this is my use case of Disturbox right now, my primary use case. I have become a big fan of the Vivaldi web browser. Now I know proprietary garbage and all that, yada, yada, yada, I understand. But Vivaldi has turned out to be a fantastic browser. It has some flaws in that the RPM package, which is available for Fedora and OpenSusa, is absolutely dog, okay? It's really, really bad. It always breaks every single update that RPM package just breaks. I don't know what they're doing to it, what they're possibly could do to it to make it break, but it always does. But the Arch package doesn't break updates. So what I've done is I've installed Arch in a Disturbox and I've installed Paru so I can have access to the AUR and I've installed the Vivaldi binary inside of Arch. Now one of my misconceptions in my first video of Disturbox was that I would have to run any application that I installed in a container in the container every single time, but that is not anywhere close to being true. One of the coolest features of Disturbox is a sub application of Disturbox called Disturbox-Export. Now Disturbox-Export allows you to take any application you install inside of a container and export that binary to your host machine. So what I've done is I've exported Vivaldi from Arch onto my OpenSusa machine and every time I launch Vivaldi now on my host machine, it runs like a native application on OpenSusa, but it's really still running in that Arch container. It's really quite cool. And why this is good is because let's just say you're a Debian user. I don't want to keep picking on the Debian users, but it's a good example. If you are on Debian stable, you're going to have a lot of stale applications over the course of the next two or three years. While we get to that next really good point release, you are going to be using older software and the longer you use Debian stable, the older that software is going to get. You're not going to get any newer stuff unless you switch to Debian testing. So by using Disturbox, you can get access to everything that Arch has to offer, everything that Gen2 has to offer, everything that OpenSusa and Fedora, whatever distro you want has to offer without sacrificing the stability of your system. If that container has stability issues, you just wipe the container. You reinstall the container or you switch to a different distro, which is literally just a one line situation for you to do. It's so awesome and it basically allows you to use whatever distro you want without any of the traditional package limitations of the past. So for years, we've been talking about the reason why you choose distro X over distro Y is because distro X has a bigger package repository. One of the reasons why a lot of people like Ubuntu beyond the user friendliness of it is because it has a very big software repository. The same thing for Arch, right? It has a very big software repository. That's why a lot of people choose it over other distributions. But we've always talked for years about how that package fragmentation over where you can get certain packages limits Linux to being one distro is better than any other because it has this package that I need it. Everyone thinks that this one distro is the one that I have to use because it's the one that has the software that I need. No longer is that a problem because you can use distro box to get access to whatever application that you want. Now in the B role that you're seeing, you're seeing me install an application and export it to my open Susan machine and launch it. You can do this with basically any application. I've done it with the Valdi. I've done it with Geary, which is an email application. I've done it with the Vinci Resolve, which is a proprietary piece of video recording or video editing software. I've done it with several different applications. And while I've had some issues, namely around Linux permissions, because of course Linux permissions is going to get you, you know, every time you try to do something cool. Mostly it's been a flawless experience. This is the primary use case for me when it comes to distro box. I think it's fantastic. And I highly recommend if you're on a distribution where you have some software limitations and I'm specifically talking about anybody but Arch and Gentoo. Gentoo and Arch seem to have the best ability to have access to basically all the software. Someone else kind of has to have blind spots. So if you're on open SUSE, you're going to have some software that's not available to you. If you're on Fedora, same situation, Debbie and you guys get the idea, right? By having distro box installed, you have access to any other distro and their repository. So you can just get that software, export it to your host and use it just like it was a native application. That's how cool distro box is. Now that's a normal person usage of distro box. I'm not a developer and the reason why I'm so enamored with distro box is because of that reason. But the primary use case of distro box for developers, if you're someone who is even just the slightest bit of a developer or someone who does development for a living, distro box can provide you with a lot of different features. And that is the number four point on the list. So if you are a developer by being able to access any distribution inside of a container with a single line, you're able to do any number of things. You're able to access distros that have different versions of compilers of dependencies that you're looking for. You could to test your application against those dependencies and against those compilers. You can test your application against different versions of different distributions. So if you want to make sure your application runs on Ubuntu and Ubuntu or Ubuntu, the most recent version of Ubuntu and Ubuntu LTS, that's probably a better example. The most recent version of Ubuntu and Ubuntu LTS, if you wanted to test your application in both of those versions of Ubuntu, you could do that really easily inside of two different distro box containers and make sure that your application actually will not only install but run properly while in those environments. So if you're a developer who is looking towards testing on multiple versions of Linux, no longer do you have to have a crap ton of VMs out there or a whole bunch of different computers all running different distributions. You can test all of your applications on every distribution the distro box has to offer and ensure that your application works on the main distros without having to do any of the old stuff that you used to have to do. So if you're a developer, you have a ton of different ways you can use distro box. And I'm sure I'm only scratching the surface, but again, I'm not a developer, but I wanted to make sure I pointed those use cases out. So the last one is, and this one here is not going to be for everybody. I guess the last one wasn't really for everybody either. But this one, I know that the idea of an immutable distribution is very polarizing in the Linux community. So if you are someone who is interested in immutable distros, distro box is an amazing tool, because basically what it allows you to do and want to actually let me put it this way, immutable distros have a significant flaw in that you don't have permanent access to your root directory. You have that lower level of the operating system that you don't have right access to now technically, there's ways around this of course, and we've talked about that before on the channel. But by default, that lower level is going to be something that is kind of containerized off from the rest of user space. By having distro box installed on immutable distro, you have your own root directory that you can play around with just like you can on any traditional Linux distribution. So if let's just say for example, you're using an immutable version of Arch, those do exist, although they're not as plentiful as the ones made on Fedora. So let's say you're using this immutable distribution of Arch, and you want to mess around with your Etsy file and you want to mess around with all the stuff that you traditionally could mess around in Arch, but you're not supposed to in this immutable distro. You can install Arch in a distro box and do all the messing around that you want instead of that root directory, and never have to worry about affecting the stability of your immutable distro that's laying underneath. You can do all of the stuff that you want to do inside of that container, and it just allows you to have the freedom that you traditionally get with Linux without having to sacrifice the benefits of the immutable distro that you're running. Another thing regarding the immutable distro thing is that it allows you to install software that you would not usually have access to. So if you wanted to say for example, install a window manager or something like that, you could install it inside of a container, and you could then run it traditionally on your immutable distro without having to affect the lower level of your immutable distro. You don't have to write to any of that stuff because it's living inside of a container. Even with any other application that you'd want to install, also, because most immutable distros are highly reliant on other containerized package formats, mostly flat packs, although in Ubuntu's case it's going to be snaps, because that's true, you don't often have a lot of access to as much software as you would traditionally have on most distributions. Now you can find ways around that. If you want to install some things from the Fedora repositories on SilverBlue, you can do that using RPMOS tree, but you're not supposed to use that as your primary package source. You're supposed to use flat pack. By having DistroBox or Fedora SilverBlue's case toolbox, you can install whatever applications you want from whatever distros you want and just export them to SilverBlue and then run them as native applications. So this is basically the third point that I talked about all over again, but you can see in the case of immutable distros, that benefit gives you the freedom that you don't actually have with immutable distros, but you get all the benefits of running immutable along with all of the benefits of having basically whatever software you want to run. So those are the five awesome reasons why you should use DistroBox. Now, I know that not all of them apply to everybody, but I think that there's probably at least one or two that apply to most people. DistroBox is one of those things that make me just so happy that I use Linux. It is so freaking cool and every time that I find another use case for it, every time I find another reason to use it, I just get so happy because it's just an amazing tool. I think that it really, let me put it this way, I think that it fixes one of the primary things that has always been wrong with Linux and that is fragmentation. Now we talked about the good and bad of fragmentation many times on this channel, but people choose their distributions and then they become warriors for those distributions, right? And they develop for those distributions and they support those distributions and then they live in that silo forever and ever without ever experiencing other things and they never have access to some of the awesome tools that live on other distributions by having a tool like DistroBox you are opening up all of your potential possibilities to everything that Linux has to offer and you can get those possibilities, have those opportunities without having to sacrifice the base distro that you love. So if you are an Uber open Suza fanboy like me, I don't know if you notice it's the sticker. If you're an open Suza fanboy, you can run open Suza, let's just say you want to use LEAP, it's the stable version of open Suza. It has all of the traditional flaws of a stable release distribution. You can have DistroBox on that install and have access to literally all of Linux, everything that it has to offer and it's just an amazing tool and an amazing feeling to just kind of have complete freedom while also being able to use the thing that you love. So in the past you'd have to make a choice, you have to make sacrifices, you'd have to use your distro knowing that there are some things that you're not going to have access to. So if you were an open Suza fanboy, you'd have to use it knowing that you're never going to have the gloryness, the gloryness, the glory that is the AUR. You're not going to have access to it. You're going to have to hear those arch fanboys in the background just yapping. We got the AUR, we got the AUR bitches, we got the AUR. And you just wanted to just punch them in the face because they had the AUR and you didn't but you loved open Suza and it wasn't quite enough to drive you away. Now you can rub it in their face because not only do you get to use the distribution that you want, you can also download Arch in a DistroBox container and have full access to they you are just like those annoying little assholes. Okay. Maybe there was a little bit of resentment there, I don't know. Also apparently in the closet back there, that's where I keep all the arch fanboys in their bodies. You never know. There's something back there you're never going to know. Anyways, that's it for this video. If you have thoughts on any of this stuff, you can leave those in the comment section below. I'd love to hear from you. If you haven't already, leave a thumbs up on this video. It would really help the channel. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash linuscast. You can support me on kofiakao-fi.com slash linuscast. I also now have a merch shop. You can check that out at shop.thelinuscast.org that there you can find t-shirts and mugs and water bottles and hoodies and caps, all this stuff. It's all very, very cool and it all goes to help the channel. So I really appreciate that. Thanks to everybody who does support me on Patreon and YouTube because we're all absolutely amazing without you. The channel just would not be any near where it is right now. So thank you so very, very much for your support. I truly, truly do appreciate it. You guys are awesome. Thanks everybody for your support. Thanks everybody for watching and putting up with this overly glowing review, I guess, or talk about DiscerBox. I'm sure this will not be the last time I come out here and just completely fanboy over this because it's really, really awesome. Anyways, I'll stop talking and rambling now. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.