Because I hate Electron
You can use appimages, more importantly if you make a directory next to the appimage with the name of the appimage +
.homethe appimage will also set that as its$HOMEthat way you can also keep the configuration files of the app separated from the host OS.You can also sandbox appimages with aisap.
I’m thinking of using VM but I’m hoping to find a better solution
Short: Yes, of course. Long: Well, this is really a long answer, depending on your needs…
I’m only needed to run any apps that has bloat/redundant dependencies so I can remove it anytime I want without screwing up my entire OS ;D
Maybe check out nix. It can be installed on any distro and if you install (temporarily but cached) the app trough nix shell you can then just clean the dependencies with nix store gc.
Come to the dark side we have version controlled operating systems
Docker, Distrobox, Toybox, systemd-nspawn, chroot.
Technically those all rely on the same kernel namespace features, just different ways to use it.
That’s also what Flatpaks and Snaps do. If you only care about package bloat, an AppImage would do too but it’s not a sandbox like Flatpak.
Don’t use docker with distrobox. Use podman instead as it is rootless and faster
Docker for servers and Rodman for home pcs
Podman goes well with Kubernetes. It also is more performant than docker.
I use both
Distrobox is probably what you’re looking for.
Holy smoke this is it, I can’t believe I’m using Linux for 1 years and still haven’t heard of this software, I’ll give it a shot thanks you very much
Since Linux tends to be inherently more efficient AND secure than WhenDoze it makes more sense to me to run Linux as the primary OS and put WhenDoze as in the VM. This has the additional benefit of making it easy to restore WhenDoze when it inevitably
shits itself.what do you mean you claim “more secure” here? secure in comparison to what, exactly?
@zwekihoyy If you look at any botnet on the net, it’s going to be 99.999% windows machines, always. If you look at machines compromised by Ransomeware, that happens to Linux but rare, common on Windows. Windows is like a 20 year old asphalt road, patches upon patches.
this idea lies on a complete misunderstanding. Linux, without extensive hardening efforts, is ootb much more insecure than either Windows or macos
I know this isn’t Reddit, but r/peopleliveincities… When 90% of desktop users use Windows, it’s going to both be the most targeted by malware developers and have the highest chance of being operated by someone who doesn’t understand enough about computers to recognize that the shiny calculator app that just popped up after visiting a very legit Nigerian prince’s crowdfunding page probably shouldn’t need admin access.
And speaking of user error, I’m willing to bet that basic security practices like using full disk encryption, SecureBoot, some MAC layer (provided by antivirus on Windows, AppArmor/SELinux on Linux) and regularly applying security updates are way more common over in the Windows land - if I was in a situation where there was one completely randomly selected Windows PC and one also completely randomly selected Linux PC, and my life depended on being able to gain access to either of them (some kind of really messed up Saw trap? idk), I would definitely bet my life on the Linux one being misconfigured.
Don’t get me wrong, Linux can make for a very secure and private OS, but most installs most definitely cannot be described as such - just look at the popularity of random unverified PPAs on Ubuntu derivatives or AUR packages on Arch.
@Markaos Well I have a dual boot system, Linux / Windows 10, and have for decades, other versions of Windows but dual boot none-the less. The old days before grub used to chain-load from the windows boot-loader (ick) but over those years I’ve probably had to reload windows owing to malware I could not excise at least once a year. I’ve never had to do this, ever, with Linux.
this owes to the fact that windows simply has exponentially more users and is therefore more valuable to target.
@zwekihoyy Yea I’ve heard that excuse but on the Internet there are infinitely more Linux servers and still Windows is more often compromised. I think it has more to do with thousands of eyes on the code submitting bug reports and fixes.
IIRC that’s the whole point of flatpak, snap and appimage
Docker can probably do it too, distrobox puts a useful wrapper on that
Nix does that kind of, nix packages aren’t isolated in that they can’t access resources on your system but all dependencies are stored in the nix store, hashed and isolated from eachother, and wiped when you collect garbage
Appimage doesn’t do deduplication of packages does it?
No, I apparently missed that but
Nix is the best solution anyway imo
Why not Docker?
I heard of docker but I’m not really sure what it is, is it free? is it hard to set everything up? Can my computer handle it?
Docker and podman aren’t too bad nowadays I don’t think assuming you’re not running something huge
(Podman is another tool that does the same thing as docker)
Docker and podman containers are basically like throwaway mini-vms that contain one application to ensure it will always run no matter where so long as the machine you’re running them on can run docker
They can run CLI stuff just fine, I’m not sure about desktop apps someone smarter than me will probably tell you about that
Docker can absolutely run desktop apps.
FOSS lightweight ”virtual machine” (it’s not quite a VM but it’s similar conceptually. It’s much lighter on your system than a VM).
Easy to install, setting it up for your use case may take some coding if it isn’t common (bash scripting experience will help).
Because podman :)
Points for the correct answer. I work on systems for spacecraft and podman is what we use on those for containerization (better option for a couple reasons)… but we literally just SAY docker to the suits, because that’s what they’ve heard of. Which is why I said docker to this guy.
One way or another, if you want to run an application you are gonna need its dependencies (the key is the name)… they may be bundled into an appimage or come as part of flatpak ruintime, or be confined inside a container, or live in the nix store, but they will “bloat” your system anyway.
Learn how to cleanup your system (ie. uninstall all packages that are not needed by others that have been requested explicitly) and live a happy life. Only bother with other solutions if the software (or version) you need isn’t available for your distro.
Go with one of the ready to use systems. Flatpak, Snap, AppImage. Snap is largely Ubuntu Ecosystem, Flatpak is independent. AppImage is an option if you do not need/want a Sandbox.
Stay away from Docker and LXC for this use case (graphical applications), they are much more work to get going.
You can just use podman+distrobox
Simple and rootless
Yes, Docker apps are more appropriate for servers and most apps are “made” to run 24/7 to serv the home or workplace.
They are very much worth the “work to setup” as they can be transfered/replicated to any system.
Flatpak and the alike are for running apps on a desktop/laptop.
Agreed. My answer was in the assumption that it’s about desktop apps as the OP mentioned Electron.
Snap turns your system into a slug at boot time, makes it take forever to shut down as it unmounts fifty memory file systems, scatters files all over the place turning a neat organized system into a pile of shit. I primary run Ubuntu, but I excise snap from it as one of the first orders of business.
Isn’t firefox strickly snapped in latest ubuntus?
@0x0 No, Mozilla maintains their own repository. You can delete snap firefox and snap everything else, add the mozilla repository, and install firefox from there. You’ll get a more current version as a side benefit. Instructions found here: askubuntu.com/questions/150203…
Luckily I use Arch (btw) so every Linux apps under the sun already available on the AUR, so I have 0 reason to use Snap/Flatpak
At that point, why still bother with Ubuntu?
@naeap As long as it remains the easiest distro for me to get from initial setup to mangled the way I want it to work I’ll stick with Ubuntu. It still tends to be more up to date than most other releases save Fedora but I do not care for the Redhat approach at all, they are rather like Windows in trying to force you to do it there way, “thou shall use LDAP and not NIS” for example. I don’t like distros that think I should change my whole organization to suit their needs. Yea at some point I probably will switch to LDAP but will do it on my own terms in my own time not dictated by a distribution vendor. It is rather trivial for me to excise snap from Ubuntu, a lot more work to hack NIS into a system that doesn’t natively support it.
It depends on your usecase. We need more detail regarding what application (gui/cui/open source/proprietary/custom) you are trying to use
- Check if the application you want to use exists as snap/flatpak/appimage.
- If it exists, install the application as per their standard operating mechansim
- Once used, just remove them. Your original system libs are untouched
If the application doesn’t exist in those platforms, it’s a different story. You might need to use distrobox or docker. Don’t use nix because it’s overkill for what you want to do.
Look into Incus (formerly LXC) containers or the various i’m gonna replace traditional packaging formats like AppImage, FlatPak and what not.
Yea, I have a Manjaro box also, which is based up on Arch with some ugliness added to it, and yes, I have installed and run Arch before so I am familiar, only problem I’ve run into is every time I go to do an update one or more apps won’t compile and I end up having to remove 35 programs and re-installing to fix. There are a lot of things to like about it though, particularly having packages that are just tar files makes them very easy to extract / modify / create. But not a great system if you just need to get things done.
Both strange and not, tbh. On one hand, I understand the sentiment; on the other hand, installing more software with its own dependencies to isolate electron’s dependencies, and potentially installing twice those libs both electron and something else on your system depend on seems counterproductive (leaving the security benefits of containerization/sandboxing out of the question here, tho).
Distrobox
