Re:Ask HN: Is Linux Safe to Daily drive in 2026?
by A_Random_Nerd on Tuesday January 20, 2026 @07:41PM
(#46699746)
I heard about the sandboxing being especially sketchy, thanks for a point in the right direction for mitigation.
Additionally, any thoughts on snap? (presently looking into Flatpak)
Re:Ask HN: Is Linux Safe to Daily drive in 2026?
by nextos on Tuesday January 20, 2026 @08:15PM
(#46699993)
I wouldn't use snap or Flatpak, just sandbox using bwrap or firejail. They are really easy to use.
Containers also provide good sandboxing. With distrobox you can run many distributions inside your own within a clean and isolated environment.
Re:Ask HN: Is Linux Safe to Daily drive in 2026?
by iknowstuff on Tuesday January 20, 2026 @08:29PM
(#46700083)
Just use flatpak. Let's not steer newbies towards barely maintained untested bespoke solutions.
Re:Ask HN: Is Linux Safe to Daily drive in 2026?
by bigyabai on Wednesday January 21, 2026 @12:57AM
(#46701665)
Flatpak uses bwrap, it's not esoteric folklore software. The OP asked a serious question and they're entitled to a serious answer.
Re:Ask HN: Is Linux Safe to Daily drive in 2026?
by Shellban on Tuesday January 20, 2026 @08:10PM
(#46699946)
Functionally, it is very similar to Flatpak. The main reason people do not like it (for reasons independent of sandboxed applications in general) is that Canonical controls the store and that it is not open-sourced, and that it is very difficult to remove it on Ubuntu setups (a major pain-point for people who need an unsandboxed Firefox setup).
If security is a major concern, bwrap or firejail can easily provide that extra sandboxing.
NixOS and GuixSD make it quite trivial to sandbox applications in a declarative fashion using firejail.
An alternative is to use e.g. Flatpak, which gets you sandboxing for free via bwrap. But I am not a fan of application images that bypass package management.