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VSCode in Distrobox

This is my current configuration for running code in Vala, now that I’m on Bluefin.

Distrobox has an official guide. This one focuses more on Distroshelf, a GUI for Distrobox.

Why?
Section titled “Why?”

I needed to install development packages like meson, gdb and vala-language-server on my machine — Devcontainers are great and all, but Distrobox are more straight forward. Plus, the display just works, and same for files.

Running VSCode inside of Distrobox

Section titled “Running VSCode inside of Distrobox”
  1. Create Distrobox in Distroshelf
    • Don’t use customizes images, so we can better check for dependencies and such
    • Don’t set a custom directory
    • I called it “valabox”
  2. Upgrade container
    • By clicking the “Upgrade container” button on Distroshelf
  3. Install VSCode
    • I prefer using the downloadable .rpm/.deb.
      • There’s also ways to setup the repo, but this does it automatically
      • Unless you used arch, I can’t help you there.
    • Use the “Install Package” button in the UI
    • Accept the prompt
    • The terminal will close when it’s done - If it closes to soon, that might be an issue
      • A wrong package format (.deb instead of .rpm)
      • A wrong architecture (arm64 instead of x64)
    • I don’t recommend exporting the app at this point - I have like 7 different VSCode installations at this point.
  4. Open VSCode from the terminal
    • Go to the “Terminal” tab on Distroshelf
    • type code
  5. Things to keep in mind:
    • Anything that requires access to the system, like docker/Devcontainers, requires a little more work.
      • To do that, you’ll have to expose a binary from the host (main computer) to the guest (pet container or distrobox)
    • This will keep you configuration across installations, as well as your logged in accounts