Flatpak and Distrobox

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Flatpak

Flatpaks provide access to the wider Linux ecosystem through Flathub. They operate entirely in user space, store system-wide installations in /var/lib, respect the immutable root, and are the recommended path for general-purpose GUI applications that may not yet have a native AppBox recipe.

Distrobox

Distrobox allows users to run any Linux distribution’s package manager inside a tightly integrated container.

The “Escape Hatch”: Users who absolutely need apt, dnf, pacman, or zypper should use this path.
Rootless Freedom: Inside the container, you have full root access to install development tools, libraries, or legacy applications.
Host Isolation: The container isolates these changes from the host system while allowing seamless desktop integration (exported apps appear in your host menu).

Documentation

Flatpak Documentation: https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/

Distrobox Documentation: https://distrobox.it/#what-it-does

Information

Users who want to use bleeding-edge Flatpaks can enable the Flathub-beta channel. Do it at your own risk.

flatpak remote-add --user flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo