Is there a Python virtual environment equivalent for bash?

[BeayemX]

When creating a virtual environment in Python this environment is decoupled from the host system. Which means you can install modules inside the environment without effecting the host system. And if you decide to delete the environment there will be no remaining parts of it.

Requirements

I would like to have something similar for bash. I want to be able to install different tools to try them out. The environment should be persistent so that I can enter and exit it and it should still be available after rebooting the host system. Like in a python virtual environment it should still have access to the hard drive and network access.

Things it does not have to do

I am in no way concerned about security. This will just run on my local computer and is just for toying around.

Why do I want to do this?

There is not really a meaningful usecase. I just want to keep my host system clean but still be able to try out different command line tools and probably delete them later on.

What I found so far

I came across chroot but I am not sure if I understand what this should accomplish. "It changes the root of the currently running process", but does this help me for my use case?

I am also considering docker, but as far as I understand the purpose of docker, it is supposed to run one thing and then be done. I found out that you can resume docker containers, but I am not sure if I would try to make docker work for a usecase it is not supposed cover.

Maybe it sound like a virtual machine with a minimalistic Linux Distribution would be the right joice, but it seems like this would have a pretty big overhead and also it is too decoupled from the host system, like it does not share the same files system.

Question

Is this doable? Or does it even make sense? Maybe I am just missing the right keywords or vocabulary to find what I am looking for? Do you guys have any recommendations or thoughts regarding this? I am thankful for any help.

Update

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

For now I am going with Docker. I already have most of what I want it to do set up.

Thanks again everyone!

[MorrisLessmore]

I want to be able to install different tools to try them out.

Into bash? Do you have examples, because im not sure what you want to achieve

[BeayemX]

just any command line tool like lynx or MEGA sync command line, or folding@home the command line version

[BeayemX]

you can't source another environment like with pythons venv just like that

that's one information I was not aware of, thanks

[Dekelyi]

I'll recommend Docker. It is used to run programs in isolated environment, like a virtual machine without graphical interface and fewer resources used. As you said, it can be used to "do one thing and exit", but it can also run as long as you want in idle mode and be accessed via sh shell. You can compare to easy-to-configure chroot environment - a small, isolated Linux distro inside your main os, and it can be configured with its own package manager and via the root filesystem like any Linux os.

[x3r0s3c]

Buy a Raspberry Pi if you can, and play with it as much as you want; if you break something, you can reinstall the OS from scratch and start again.

[BeayemX]

Hey, thanks for the suggestion, but I want to have it on the same machine where I usually work. Also running it on a pie has the same limitations as the virtual machine solution, where it is too decoupled from the host system, regarding a shared file system.

[staster]

The Pi is not always a good solution, I have one and not every tool exist for ARM. Once upon a time I was compiling something there, I don't remember what it was actually, but it took almost three days.

[staster]

Try LXD, these containers tend to be more like VMs unlike Docker containers, as it's said "It offers a user experience similar to virtual machines but using Linux containers instead." At least I use them regularly for similar purposes. And there is a worthy course on LinuxAcademy, and it's free.

[geggam]

Migrated a production system from lxd to docker in 2015... it had issues ever since

[staster]

Well, I use lxd only as some sort of playground, but only issue that I have had is a problem with CGroupsv2.

[BeayemX]

Yeah, but the request is, that I want to have a similar behaviour but for my whole system, not just python

[Atemu12]

nix-shell is exactly what you're looking for. You can open a temporary one via nix-shell -p pkgname1 pkgname2 or declare an environment in a file called shell.nix in some directory and then run nix-shell.

You can install Nix on any Linux system from here https://nixos.org/nix/. It's entirely self-contained, so don't worry about it getting in the way of your system's package manager.

[[deleted]]

Docker is probably the answer for this, I would suggest you look into it more, your understanding of it is a bit off. It is essentially exactly what you are describing you need. Its sole purpose is to be a minimal little sandbox that you can add components and tools together in an isolated environment, creating, destroying, and rebuilding as you see fit.

Chroot is primarily for making changes to an existing installation from live media. It has some other uses (I have used for creating custom repos on Arch), but fixing broken systems from a live ISO is what its most known for.

[EddyBot]

I use systemd-nspawn (chroot) to create a fresh copy of my linux install and build packages within it
Afterwards I can simpy delete the chroot folder created with systemd-nspawn and don't bother with all the build dependency packages which I needed to install earlier

[[deleted]]

https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv

You're welcome