Kontainer – Qt Container Manager for Distrobox & Toolbox

Kontainer is a feature-rich graphical interface for managing containerized environments using Distrobox and Toolbox, written in C++ with Qt 6.9.

🧠 Inspired by BoxBuddy and later by DistroShelf, Kontainer has surpassed BoxBuddy in both features and usability, and is close to surpassing DistroShelf, with ongoing work on Toolbox integration, optimizations, and KDE-native APIs.

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🧪 Project Status

• Backends:
  • ✅ Distrobox: Fully supported
  • 🧪 Toolbox: Experimental, nearly complete (export/unexport, container management, RPM/DEB/pkg.tar install support)
• UI:
  • ✅ Qt 6.9 with strong KDE integration
• Feature Set:
  • ✅ Surpasses BoxBuddy
  • ⚙️ Almost on par with DistroShelf — Toolbox upgrade and deeper API integration planned
• i18n:
  • ✅ KDE-style translations with KLocalizedString
• User Configuration:
  • ✅ Users can choose backend and terminal emulator
• Packaging:
  • ✅ Flatpak (recommended)
  • ✅ AUR available

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✨ Features

• View, create, delete, and enter containers
• Export and unexport apps (including Toolbox apps — downstream addition)
• Install .rpm, .deb, .pkg.tar packages into containers
• Full Distrobox backend support including upgrades
• Toolbox backend (experimental but usable)
• App and Distro icons with proper export handling
• KDE Plasma integration and theming
• Configurable terminal backend and container backend
• KDE i18n via KLocalizedString

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🚧 Roadmap

• Replace hardcoded logic with KDE APIs
• Add Toolbox upgrade capability
• Optimize Toolbox backend and final stabilization
• Possibly rewrite UI in Kirigami for responsiveness
• Move past KDE Playground and go through official KDE review
• Expand user settings and UX polish

⚠️ Note: Kontainer is currently in Playground stage. Please do not ship or package it until it passes KDE Review and is marked stable.

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📦 Build & Install

🟢 Flatpak (Recommended)

git clone https://invent.kde.org/system/kontainer
flatpak install org.kde.Sdk//6.9
flatpak-builder --force-clean build-dir kontainer.flatpak.yaml --user --install

🟡 AUR (Arch Linux)

yay -S kontainer-git

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🔧 Build from Source

1. Install Qt 6.9+ with C++17 support
2. Clone and build:

git clone https://invent.kde.org/system/kontainer
cd kontainer
cmake .
make

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📜 License

Licensed under GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSES/ and SPDX headers.

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🖼️ Trademark & Attribution

All icons and branding are owned by their respective trademark holders. Justifications and documentation are located in res/trademarks/, organized per distro.