Rootless package management

[jumpyvi]

What do we do about rootless package management?

The baseOS + flatpak provides what most people need
ext-sdk provides requirements for build elementaryOS project

We need a package manager for CLI tools, and possibly devel deps

Brew

https://brew.sh/

It's probably the best way to install cli apps (but not so much devel deps) at the moment.

It does have a few issues, like overwriting glib and completely breaking on multi-user system or when non-classic user ID are in use (like systemd-homed does.)
They can be fixed with :

• https://invent.kde.org/kde-linux/kde-linux/-/merge_requests/408
• https://codeberg.org/HastD/brew-proxy

We would probably have to package it as a deb in the ppa.

ColdBrew

https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/coldbrew

Really nice, a bit less system integration than brew (for better and worst), portable services seem amazing.
Is probably too isolated for most use cases.

Toolpack

https://blogs.gnome.org/alatiera/2026/09/26/introducing-toolpak/

Doesnt exist ):

NixPkgs

Please god no. (Still user installable)

Distrobox/podman

Good for project and devs, but it's still not a real package manager.
Both are included by default in baseOS

[asonix]

Nix is user-installable only if a system /nix directory exists or can be created iirc. Idk how elementary's rootfs is going to work but it might be a good idea to keep that in mind

[jumpyvi]

Yes, only /usr is read-only.

You can create /nix if you want.

[jumpyvi]

I actually tested this.

Vanilla Nix works perfectly

Determinate Nix doesn't work

[RMcNeely]

How much of this needs to be solved before OS9? Is it realistic to wait and follow the progress of Toolpack or do we need a solution sooner?

[jumpyvi]

I'm still not sure if Jordan is actually working on Toolpack, or if it was just an idea.

If it is in the work, will should wait for it

If it's not in the work, we need to choose another solution

[RMcNeely]

Yeah it was a little unclear from the blog post. I would favor working with something that exists or joining a (nee) group effort rather than inventing something for elementary.

[RMcNeely]

Just reading about Coldbrew and curious what makes it seem to niche for our use case? The idea of using bubblewrap just like Flatpak seems great.

Even if the name is pretty meh

[jumpyvi]

I'm not a big fan of the musl stuff...

I think if it were Ubuntu based, it would be pretty amazing