I am freaking out on how well distrobox is working for me. I buy a lot of games on itch.io and GOG, and neither have a flatpak. However, installing an Ubuntu container (max compatibility) and launching games from there just works. Okay, I have yet to install a GOG game, but it the Itch client works then what won’t?

I am so excited. Containers are so fun. I guess arch would be easier, but whatevs.

  • @DidacticDumbassOP
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    58 months ago

    So it turns out, I cannot use my NVIDIA card using distrobox. I guess it only works with AMD?

    Anyways, gaming using Bazzite is a dead end for me. I still find Fedora Silverblue super fun to use, and I think I will just run Steam + Lutris using Flatpaks. I was wondering if distrobox would somehow allow better performance, but I don’t understand the technology well enough to even make those presumption. I see that this image is used a lot on Steam Deck, which I also don’t understand why (as opposed to having everything native).

    Anyways, I can still game well on Silverblue. Baldur’s Gate 3 runs okay. So, that means I am fine, hah!

    The only gripe I have, which is just my stupidity, is that I have way of using Mozilla VPN. I tried to run it on an Ubuntu container, but I must be doing something wrong because it does not launch. Maybe I need to look into podman more closely, or maybe I am missing some graphical dependencies that is assumed to exist on a DE. I shall keep trying.

    • @alt@lemmy.ml
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      58 months ago

      Thank you for reporting back! Much appreciated!

      So it turns out, I cannot use my NVIDIA card using distrobox. I guess it only works with AMD?

      Interesting. Unfortunately, I don’t own an Nvidia device. Therefore, I can’t tackle it myself. Distrobox should allow the use of Nvidia, but I’m unaware if this applies to the bazzite-arch container as well. The picture you shared and the link to its FAQ-page (found below) do suggest otherwise, unfortunately…

      I was wondering if distrobox would somehow allow better performance

      FWIW, I’ve always experienced better performance inside the bazzite-arch distrobox container, at least compared to Flatpak*.

      I see that this image is used a lot on Steam Deck, which I also don’t understand why (as opposed to having everything native).

      Because the distro image it’s used in conjunction with, Bazzite, is Fedora-based, while Steam OS is based on Arch. Bazzite is Fedora-based in the first place, because Arch doesn’t officially have any plans for ‘immutable’ distros yet. As for the remaining distros, only Fedora and NixOS (see Jovian-NixOS) have a sufficiently mature and suitable platform at this point in time.

      maybe I am missing some graphical dependencies

      This happens way more often than you might expect. Even the so-called ‘toolbox’ containers from Distrobox miss a lot of packages required to support software graphically. Consider running it inside a terminal and pay attention to error codes etc; those might/should help you resolve the issue. Sometimes it helps to explicitly use the -v or --verbose option to ensure that the program actually communicates what’s happening.

      • @DidacticDumbassOP
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        48 months ago

        Thank you for your feedback! I am learning a lot. This is the first time I have run into issues where I was not tempted to abandon ship and go back to what works. I actually care about this system and want it to succeed. I think this is a super cool path forward.

        The only other time I felt this interested in a new paradigm of linux was GoboLinux with its compartmentalized installation of programs, so you can have every version you need, but I got confused with the recipe system and I don’t know if it is still active.

        One problem I had is that I was trying to download an image for linux mint, because it gives me access to PPAs without needing to use SNAP due to Ubuntu, but I could not get an image to download, no matter what combination of linux + mint + version I used. I finally realized I could search podman, now I can go forward!

        • @alt@lemmy.ml
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          28 months ago

          Thank you for your feedback! I am learning a lot.

          Glad to be of use 😜!

          This is the first time I have run into issues where I was not tempted to abandon ship and go back to what works. I actually care about this system and want it to succeed. I think this is a super cool path forward.

          I wholeheartedly agree!

          GoboLinux

          Wow, I almost forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me!

          One problem I had is that I was trying to download an image for linux mint, because it gives me access to PPAs without needing to use SNAP due to Ubuntu, but I could not get an image to download, no matter what combination of linux + mint + version I used. I finally realized I could search podman, now I can go forward!

          Good job learning about podman search! I’m sure you’ll manage 😉!

      • capital
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        125 days ago

        Interesting. Unfortunately, I don’t own an Nvidia device. Therefore, I can’t tackle it myself. Distrobox should allow the use of Nvidia

        THANK YOU.

        I’ve been searching for a few hours how to get distrobox to utilize my GPU and that link got me there.

    • jlow (he/him)
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      38 months ago

      Concerning Baldur’s Gate, are you using Wayland or X11? For me Wayland was much smoother than X11.

      • @DidacticDumbassOP
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        38 months ago

        I think I am using Wayland since that is the default.

        Also, I once made the mistake of running on DX11, which was worse.