VPN Client and other lower level apps on immutable distros

VPN
1

so, the situation i’m wondering about basically is how to go about installing my VPN gui client on Bazzite.

on debian i simply use the .deb. there’s also a .rpm.

as i understand it you can’t install programs that way with immutable distros. my options are flatpak, appimage, distrobox and brew.

i know flatpak and presumably brew would work but they don’t offer the client in that format.

it is on the AUR however. my question is if the VPN would function properly inside a distrobox container? (debian and fedora are also options with their respective installers)

2

many vpn services support the OpenVPN standard, so the default/often included OpenVPN client with many distros will work with them.

But you may lose some specific features of the vpn service using the openvpn client.

Its possible to install packages using the rpm-ostree command on Bazzite to install normal fedora packages.

3

rpm-ostree enables layering packages on top of the base OS, so it’s not really “immutable”.

It’s why fedora has started labelling silverblue, etc, as “atomic” distros, since the immutable word is not quite accurate

4

There’s a resources page in our wiki you might find useful!

Try this search for more information on this topic.

✻ Smokey says: take regular backups, try stuff in a VM, and understand every command before you press Enter! :slight_smile:

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  1. here ↩︎

5

if the VPN would function properly inside a distrobox container?

Try it and see? If it fails - delete the container.

6

yes, there are silverblue / rpm-ostree install instructions on the website now. i don’t remember them being there the last time i was there. i’ll be going with that.

thanks

7

I’ve attempted to do that with rpm-ostree install and every time I try it fails.

8

tried. my assumption was that i could simply yay myvpn and run it but it doesn’t work like that i guess.