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Show HN: Devbox – Easy, predictable shells and containers

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Show HN: Devbox – Easy, predictable shells and containers

#1

Post by robrich »

Devbox is a command-line tool that lets you easily create isolated shells and containers. You start by defining the list of packages required by your development environment, and devbox uses that definition to create an isolated environment just for your application.

In practice, Devbox works similar to a package manager like yarn – except the packages it manages are at the operating-system level (the sort of thing you would normally install with brew or apt-get).

See it in action: https://youtu.be/WMBaXQZmDoA

Show HN: Devbox – Easy, predictable shells and containers
github.com

Re: Show HN: Devbox – Easy, predictable shells and containers

#6

Post by figomore »

vogelito wrote: post #5

what is this sorcery?

It seems to use [Nix](https://nixos.org). In Nix you can use [nix-shell](https://ghedam.at/15978/an-introduction-to-nix-shell) to create a shell with the packages you want. For instance, to create a new shell with Python-2.7:

``` $ nix-shell -p python27 ```

Re: Show HN: Devbox – Easy, predictable shells and containers

#8

Post by dloreto »

figomore wrote: post #6
vogelito wrote: post #5

what is this sorcery?

It seems to use [Nix]( https://nixos.org ). In Nix you can use [nix-shell]( https://ghedam.at/15978/an-introduction-to-nix-shell ) to create a shell with the packages you want. For instance, to create a new shell with Python-2.7: ``` $ nix-shell -p python27 ```

Yes, internally it's using nix .. but it makes nix soooo much easier to use. With nix I've always struggled with the nix language and writing nix expressions.

If you are comfortable with nix itself, then it allows you to do a lot more than devbox does, but at the cost of extra complexity.

Depends on what level of abstraction you're looking for.

Re: Show HN: Devbox – Easy, predictable shells and containers

#9

Post by reddit_clone »

figomore wrote: post #6
vogelito wrote: post #5

what is this sorcery?

It seems to use [Nix]( https://nixos.org ). In Nix you can use [nix-shell]( https://ghedam.at/15978/an-introduction-to-nix-shell ) to create a shell with the packages you want. For instance, to create a new shell with Python-2.7: ``` $ nix-shell -p python27 ```

Not surprised. When I read the description I was thinking 'sounds like a job for Nix..'
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