{"id":50697479,"url":"https://github.com/codam-coding-college/towel","last_synced_at":"2026-06-09T07:32:57.808Z","repository":{"id":359118718,"uuid":"1185291674","full_name":"codam-coding-college/towel","owner":"codam-coding-college","description":"Distrobox/podman config with Codam specific sensible defaults","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2026-05-20T15:17:25.000Z","size":112,"stargazers_count":0,"open_issues_count":11,"forks_count":0,"subscribers_count":0,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2026-05-20T17:13:04.341Z","etag":null,"topics":[],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"","language":"Shell","has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":"mit","status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/codam-coding-college.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":"CHANGELOG.md","contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":"LICENSE","code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":null,"authors":null,"dei":null,"publiccode":null,"codemeta":null,"zenodo":null,"notice":null,"maintainers":null,"copyright":null,"agents":"AGENTS.md","dco":null,"cla":null}},"created_at":"2026-03-18T12:39:00.000Z","updated_at":"2026-05-20T15:22:05.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":null,"dependency_job_id":null,"html_url":"https://github.com/codam-coding-college/towel","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":["codam-coding-college/towel"],"tags_count":4,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"purl":"pkg:github/codam-coding-college/towel","repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/codam-coding-college%2Ftowel","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/codam-coding-college%2Ftowel/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/codam-coding-college%2Ftowel/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/codam-coding-college%2Ftowel/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/codam-coding-college","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/codam-coding-college/towel/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","sbom_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/codam-coding-college%2Ftowel/sbom","scorecard":null,"host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":286080680,"owners_count":34096950,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2026-05-26T15:22:16.424Z","status":"online","status_checked_at":"2026-06-09T02:00:06.510Z","response_time":63,"last_error":null,"robots_txt_status":"success","robots_txt_updated_at":"2025-07-24T06:49:26.215Z","robots_txt_url":"https://github.com/robots.txt","online":true,"can_crawl_api":true,"host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":[],"created_at":"2026-06-09T07:32:57.746Z","updated_at":"2026-06-09T07:32:57.802Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/codam-coding-college.png","language":"Shell","funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"readme":"# Towel\n\u003e A towel is just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can carry.\n\nA thin wrapper around **Distrobox** to keep your host clean while still running tools and apps as if they were locally installed.\n\n\n## What this project does\n\nTowel installs a `towel` command and a predefined Distrobox container config for `towel`, based on Fedora toolbox. It adds a simple workflow for:\n\n- creating/entering the container,\n- installing packages with `dnf` inside the container,\n- exporting app launchers/binaries back to the host via managed wrappers.\n\n## Quick start\n\n### 1) Install towel\n\nFrom this repo root:\n\n```bash\n./install\n```\n\n- Use `./install --yes` in non-interactive scripts.\n- The installer will:\n  - copy towel files to `~/.local/share/towel`\n  - symlink `~/.local/bin/towel`\n  - copy distrobox/container config to `~/.config`\n  - install distrobox automatically if missing\n\n### 2) Create the container\n\n```bash\ntowel create\n```\n\n### 3) Enter it\n\n```bash\ntowel enter\n```\n\n### 4) Install software\n\n```bash\ntowel install \u003cpackage\u003e\n```\n\nBy default it prompts whether to export installed apps/binaries to the host.\nUse `towel install --yes \u003cpackage\u003e` to auto-export.\n\n---\n\n## Common commands\n\n```bash\ntowel                 # same as towel enter\ntowel create          # create container from ~/.config/distrobox/towel.ini\ntowel enter           # enter container shell\ntowel exec \u003ccmd\u003e      # run command inside container\ntowel install \u003cpkg\u003e   # dnf install inside container (+ optional export)\ntowel export \u003cpkg\u003e    # export already-installed package commands/apps\ntowel remove          # remove container and exported wrappers\ntowel update --check  # check for updates\ntowel update --apply  # install latest release\n```\n\n## How export works\n\nExported integrations are managed by towel and placed under:\n\n- internal wrappers: `~/.local/share/towel/exports/`\n- host-facing symlinks/apps:\n  - `~/.local/bin/`\n  - `~/.local/share/applications/towel-*.desktop`\n\nDiscovery is package-file based (`dnf repoquery`) and currently only exports:\n\n- binaries in `/usr/bin/*`\n- desktop entries in `/usr/share/applications/*.desktop`\n\n---\n\n## What applications work well in towel?\n\n### ✅ Good fit\n\nApps/tools that are:\n\n- regular RPM packages installed via `dnf`\n- command-line tools with executables in `/usr/bin`\n- desktop apps that ship standard `.desktop` launchers in `/usr/share/applications`\n- user-space developer tooling (compilers, linters, formatters, language runtimes, editors)\n\nThese are the exact paths towel knows how to export cleanly.\n\n### ⚠️ Usually awkward or unsupported\n\nApps that require behavior outside towel’s export/runtime model, for example:\n\n- software that needs host-level system services (`systemd` units, daemons, kernel modules)\n- packages whose main binaries are not in `/usr/bin` (for example only in `/opt`, custom paths, or generated at runtime)\n- GUI apps without a standard `.desktop` launcher under `/usr/share/applications`\n- apps needing privileged/root-style host integration beyond normal user-space container access\n\nThese can still run manually in some cases, but won’t be reliably auto-exported by `towel export`.\n\n## Notes\n\n- `towel remove` is destructive and unexports managed wrappers first.\n- The default container config lives at `~/.config/distrobox/towel.ini` (copied from this repo during install).\n- If `towel` isn’t found after install, restart your shell so `~/.local/bin` is on `PATH`.\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fcodam-coding-college%2Ftowel","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fcodam-coding-college%2Ftowel","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fcodam-coding-college%2Ftowel/lists"}