Project Bluefin: Quick desktop tour and updates! Homebrew, boxbuddy, and ptyxis!
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Bluefin is almost here! Check out the full docs here: https://universal-blue.discourse.group/docs?topic=41https://projectbluefin.ioBoxbuddy: https://flathub....
  • trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    41·
    7 months ago

    I’m using Bluefin, and it’s really cool, but sometimes I wish I could scrap the immutability because installing certain apps is excruciating.

    Yes, I know how to use distroboxes and rpm-ostree, but certain applications straight up won’t work if you can’t write to certain directories.

    I hope they can solve this problem, although I’m not sure how.

    • randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      3·
      7 months ago

      I think immutability is the point of this particular distribution. There are definitely some kinks but conceptually I really like what they’ve done.

      I’m curious, what apps are you having issues with specifically?

      • trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        2·
        7 months ago

        For sure, immutability is a point of the distro, but I have other reasons for using it. Namely, hardware-enablement and nice dev experience additions.

        There’s definitely value in immutability, but sometimes I wish I could temporarily disable it so I can do what I need to, while easily retaining those changes on updates.

        The main program that I’m unable to install is espanso. It’s an open source text-expansion program that has become invaluable to me and the way that I type.

        I can build it from source, create an RPM for it, and even try layering it with rpm-ostree, but even then, I have the problem of missing libraries, like wxGTK*. Sure, I can technically manually acquire those libs and use ldconfig to configure them in a writable directory, but at that point, you’re basically suffering through a dependency nightmare that isn’t worth maintaining.

        For stuff like that, I really wish that I could just scrap the immutability and simply install some more system-level packages like that more easily.

        EDIT: I forgot to mention that the reason I can’t simply layer the wxGTK* libs and the RPM manually: espanso requires slightly different versions of the libs, and if I could simply symlink the newer versions that are available in the Silverblue repositories to the slightly older versions that espanso requires, I could probably get it to work.

          • trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            1·
            7 months ago

            I forget, to be honest. That was the first thing I tried but I did that weeks ago and have given up since then.

            I want to say that it might have been the fact that I’d have to install and enable a GUI environment in the container, which would be, at best, odd, but at worst, buggy, since espanso would be interacting with the GUI in the container environment, rather than my host.

            • huskypenguin@sh.itjust.works
              1·
              7 months ago

              It’s not that bad. I run Davinci resolve in a Distrobox.

              Edit: and when I say it’s not that bad it’s basically flawless

              • trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                1·
                7 months ago

                Fair enough. I have some other GUI applications in a distrobox container.

                I should have clarified that this program, in particular, does more than merely display content: it has to interact with my Wayland session to inject key strokes, which doesn’t seem to work from a distrobox container from what I’ve seen.

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    2·
    7 months ago

    Very very cool!

    Tbh I am on Ublue Kinoite and nix just broke and seems extremely hacky. Also no idea how to remove nix again, there seems to be no way?

    The ujust vs just is kinda confusing.

    Boxbuddy is really cool, but distrobox and Konsole works just as well.

    You know what? I will write a script that automates

    • creating a distrobox box
    • creates a konsole profile to open it
    • adds a desktop action to konsole to launch it
  • mFat@lemdro.idEnglish
    1·
    7 months ago

    Is there a list of features? Can anyone tell me why I should switch to this from fedora workstation as a normal home user?