Distrobox

Distrobox offers you to use any linux distribution inside your terminal as a simple wrapper for Podman, Docker or Lilipod.

Setup

Distrobox uses Docker internally to fetch and run system images. Easily get started by enabling Podman with Docker-compatibility mode.

virtualisation.podman = {
  enable = true;
  dockerCompat = true;
};

environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.distrobox ];

Usage

Setup container with latest Arch Linux image

# distrobox create --name archlinux --init --image archlinux:latest

Enter Arch Linux container

# distrobox enter archlinux

For further usage, please refer to the Distrobox documentation.

Tips and tricks

Using different architecture

Following example will run an Ubuntu container with a different architecture than the host, in this case arm64.

Add following line to your system configuration, apply it and then reboot the system.

boot.binfmt.emulatedSystems = [ "aarch64-linux" ];

Run a Debian container with arm64 architecture

sudo podman run --rm --privileged multiarch/qemu-user-static --reset -p yes
distrobox create -n debian --image arm64v8/debian
distrobox enter debian

"potentially insufficient UIDs and GUIDs" error

When setting up containers that do not run as root, you may see an error along the following lines: (this example uses podman, lilipod has a different error)

# distrobox create container
...
Error: copying system image from manifest list: writing blob: adding layer with blob ...:
unpacking failed (error: exit status 1;
output: potentially insufficient UIDs or GIDs available in user namespace (requested 1000:1000 for /home/ubuntu): Check /etc/subuid and /etc/subgid if configured locally and run "podman system migrate": lchown /home/ubuntu: invalid argument)

adding the following to your config might help:

  users.users.ilyagr = {
      extraGroups = [ "podman" ];
      subGidRanges = [
          {
              count = 65536;
              startGid = 1000;
          }
      ];
      subUidRanges = [
          {
              count = 65536;
              startUid = 1000;
          }
      ];
  };

Rebuild your system, run podman system migrate, and try creating the distrobox container again.