[kwlug-disc] Debian "testing" -- not bad

[Doug Moen]

It didn't occur to me to create users and mount devices inside a toolbox container, but nice to know that's supported if I really did want to isolate those kinds of changes from the base system. I had mainly thought of toolbox as way to create project-specific disposable environments, separate from the base system, which for me means installing specific versions of development tools. Also, toolbox and distrobox allow you to install packages from distros other than Fedora. For example you can install a Debian distro using distrobox, without the RAM overhead of running Debian in a VM, and with tighter integration with the host system.

> How do you deal with Toolbox getting corrupted?

You can create multiple toolbox containers, and they are disposable. You can use "toolbox rm" to remove one that you no longer need or which is corrupted.

> Each image is 7GB, and it adds up.  I'm already 17Gb

I just deleted one of my deployments and freed up 400MB. I can't confirm that each deployment is 7GB. I think the size of a deployment depends on how many files have changed relative to previous deployments.

> Perhaps, a better solution is to borrow from database.  Tag all
> items with version number.  Then, to rollback, you just go back to
> a working version number.

It is my understanding that this is how ostree already works. It manages storage on the granularity of files. So if the same file contents appears in multiple deployments, only one copy of that content is stored.

> This "Kinoite" smells like "Chromebook".

I have a Chromebook, but I gave it to my wife. I don't want to run ChromeOS because it is immutable: that is, it is locked down and you can't change the base OS. Plus, there is this feeling that the machine is owned by Google, and not owned by me. I don't have full control over it.

In addition to being locked down, ChromeOS also supports atomic updates, and that's what it has in common with Kinoite. I installed Kinoite to experience atomic updates in a fully hackable system.



On Sun, Dec 28, 2025, at 8:05 AM, William Park wrote:
> 
> On 2025-12-27 23:59, Doug Moen wrote:
>> I am actually running Kinoite as a daily driver, and I can install packages in the base system just fine.
> 
> OK,* *I installed Kinoite on VirtualBox.  Few things I discovered:
>  • Main images show up as entries in GRUB boot page.  Normally, it would be kernels.  Now, it's images.  You just select which images to boot from.
>  • Each image is 7GB, and it adds up.  I'm already 17Gb, and I haven't done much.
>  • /etc/passwd and /etc/group in the main image and inside Toolbox are different.  So, devices that I mount will have different owner/group in the main image and inside Toolbox.  It was pain to resolve all the "Permission denied", and there are few I'm not gonna bother.
>  • This "Kinoite" smells like "Chromebook".  It's OK for consumer use case.
> I'm now compiling few Raspberry Pi kernels...  Let's see how it goes.
> 
> *NOTE*:
> 
> I think, it's just shifting problems.  You now have 2 systems.  You are still doing "dnf" inside Toolbox.  How do you deal with Toolbox getting corrupted?
> 
> Perhaps, a better solution is to borrow from database.  Tag all items with version number.  Then, to rollback, you just go back to a working version number.
> 
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