Distoolbox

Distrobox? Toolbox? Whatever you want.

Distoolbox
- Reese's Arch Distoolbox
  - Using Reese's Arch Toolbox
  - Integrating distoolbox into your workflow
    - Aliases using Distrobox
    - Aliases using Toolbox
- Building Reese's Arch Toolbox

Reese's Arch Distoolbox

I have a custom arch image based on the default arch-toolbox image. It offers:

zsh with many completions installed/enabled
vim
nslookup
iperf3
kubectl
helm
nethogs
python, pip, and pipx
ansible
aws cli
podman (connected automatically to the host machine via the unix socket)
tmux
ffmpeg
wine
podman
unzip
bat
btop
jq
yq
imagemagick
code
make, gcc

Using Reese's Arch Toolbox

Head to https://gitea.reeseapps.com/services/-/packages and pick the CPU image or AMD GPU image.

If you can't decide pick the CPU image.

The GPU image was built and tested with a Framework 16 with 7700s GPU module.

Click the image and copy the tag (should be something like: 2a421392b1)

Next you need distrobox or toolbox. Both are good options.

If you don't know whether to use distrobox or toolbox:

If you're on Fedora, and you haven't used either, toolbox is built-in
If you understand toolbox and you've never used distrobox, try distrobox
If you understand distrobox and you've never used toolbox, try toolbox
If you care what I use: distrobox

Once you have toolbox or distrobox installed, try the following:

export TBOX_REPO='gitea.reeseapps.com/services'
export TBOX_IMAGE='arch-toolbox'
export TBOX_TAG=paste image tag copied above here
export TBOX_NAME="$TBOX_IMAGE-$TBOX_TAG"

# With distrobox
distrobox create --name $TBOX_NAME --image $TBOX_REPO/$TBOX_IMAGE:$TBOX_TAG
distrobox enter $TBOX_NAME

# With toolbox
toolbox create -i $TBOX_REPO/$TBOX_IMAGE:$TBOX_TAG
SHELL=/bin/zsh toolbox enter $TBOX_NAME

Integrating distoolbox into your workflow

Copy the relevant aliases below into your .bashrc.

Run ntbox the first time to create a new toolbox.

Run tbox anytime you want to enter the toolbox.

Run rtbox to delete the toolbox.

Aliases using Distrobox

Add the following to your .bashrc

# Reese's Toolbox Commands
export TBOX_REPO='gitea.reeseapps.com/services'

# NOTE: Uncomment one of the below for either the amdgpu or cpu image
# export TBOX_IMAGE='arch-toolbox'
# export TBOX_IMAGE='arch-toolbox-amdgpu'

export TBOX_TAG=paste image tag copied above here
export TBOX_NAME="$TBOX_IMAGE-$TBOX_TAG"

# Creates a new toolbox
alias ntbox="distrobox create --name $TBOX_NAME --image $TBOX_REPO/$TBOX_IMAGE:$TBOX_TAG"
# Enters the toolbox when you want to use it, you'll be running this all the time
alias tbox="distrobox enter $TBOX_NAME"
# Removes the toolbox
alias rtbox="distrobox stop $TBOX_NAME --yes && podman container rm $TBOX_NAME"

Aliases using Toolbox

# Reese's Toolbox Commands
export TBOX_REPO='gitea.reeseapps.com/services'

# NOTE: Uncomment one of the below for either the amdgpu or cpu image
# export TBOX_IMAGE='arch-toolbox'
# export TBOX_IMAGE='arch-toolbox-amdgpu'

export TBOX_TAG='latest'
export TBOX_NAME="$TBOX_IMAGE-$TBOX_TAG"

# Creates a new toolbox
alias ntbox="toolbox create -i $TBOX_REPO/$TBOX_IMAGE:$TBOX_TAG"
# Enters the toolbox when you want to use it, you'll be running this all the time
alias tbox="SHELL=/bin/zsh toolbox enter $TBOX_NAME"
# Removes the toolbox
alias rtbox="podman container stop $TBOX_NAME && podman container rm $TBOX_NAME"

Building Reese's Arch Toolbox

You can build and run the image with the arch-build.sh script (See Containerfile in this directory):

./infrastructure/graduated/distoolbox/arch-build.sh

In vscode you can set this as your default build task for homelab and trigger it with ctrl shift B

.vscode/tasks.json

{
    // See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=733558
    // for the documentation about the tasks.json format
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [
        {
            "label": "Build arch-toolbox",
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "./infrastructure/graduated/distoolbox/arch-build.sh",
            "problemMatcher": [],
            "group": {
                "kind": "build",
                "isDefault": true
            }
        }
    ]
}

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