Connect vscode to distroboxes via podman?

[castrojo]

The gift that keeps on giving! Luca thinks we can use this:

https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/blob/main/docs/posts/integrate_vscode_distrobox.md#third-step-podman-wrapper

to connect podman to distroboxes, that way people can have their cake and eat it too if they just have to have their distroboxes connected to vscode. We could toss this wrapper on the image somewhere and then have people opt-in or ujust switch to this perhaps as an option?

Leaving this open for discussion and if someone wants to pick it up.

[89luca89]

Posting an updated version of the wrapper (will update the docs one day :P)

#!/bin/bash
set -x

# This little workaround is used to ensure
# we use our $USER inside the containers, without
# resorting to creating devcontainer.json or similar stuff
arr=("$@")
id="$( echo "$@" | rev | cut -d' ' -f2 | rev)"
# if exec && distrobox -> use distrobox-enter --
if  [ "$(flatpak-spawn --host podman inspect --type container --format '{{.Config.Labels.manager}}' "${id}")" == "distrobox" ]; then
    for i in "${!arr[@]}"; do
        if [[ ${arr[$i]} == *"root:root"* ]]; then
            arr[$i]="$(echo "${arr[$i]}" | sed "s|root:root|$USER:$USER|g")"
        fi
    done
fi
flatpak-spawn --host podman "${arr[@]}"

It checks for labels in order to do the user-swap only on distroboxes
It should be trivial to add a check for toolbx too, so they can also benefit from this!

[castrojo]

Ok this is on the host now via another PR. I think we need to add the remote vscode extension to the profile (I can work on this), anything else?

[89luca89]

Yes needs the remote extension, and a setting to use this instead of docker

Which I wouldn't do by default I guess

[castrojo]

I added the extension: https://github.com/ublue-os/bluefin/pull/888/files

I'll post on the forum and get feedback before we close this.

[m2Giles]

Can confirm that this works with distrobox. Toolbox did not work with a standard toolbox but worked with a quadlet based one (sorta still connected as root)

Oddities I noticed, since I had setup dotfiles with the dev-containers extension, it pulled in my dotfiles deploy script unexpectedly.

Additionally, it does not fully set-up everything for distrobox and toolbox. You will need to manually setup some environment variables to get distrobox-host-exec to work.

This worked best with distroboxes with their own $HOME.

I like that this is on disk. I'm unsure I would have this be the default experience.

It should be easy to use jq to add the necessary keys to the config.json to automate enabling and disabling this using a just command.

[89luca89]

Additionally, it does not fully set-up everything for distrobox and toolbox. You will need to manually setup some environment variables to get distrobox-host-exec to work.
This worked best with distroboxes with their own $HOME.

Yes because it does not actually do a distrobox enter
It would be better if we manage to do it with distrobox enter, but I didn't manage to do it

Maybe needs more work/testing