Subpop

Persistent Linux development containers for macOS. Create toolbox-style containers, share your home directory, and get an interactive shell with your host user and environment.

Features

• Create persistent containers from Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch, or RHEL toolbox images, or any OCI image
• Enter an interactive shell with your host UID/GID, $HOME bind-mounted, and $SHELL preserved
• List containers with name, start time, status, and image
• Remove containers (with optional force) and clean up runtime data
• Configurable log level (--log-level) for debugging

Prerequisites

• macOS 26 or later
• Swift 6.2 (Xcode or Swift toolchain)
• Apple Container runtime 0.10.0 or later

Installation with Mint

mint install subpop/applebox

Example usage

Create a named Ubuntu 24.04 container:

box create --distro ubuntu --release 24.04 my-ubuntu

Create from a custom OCI image:

box create --image docker.io/library/debian:bookworm my-debian

Enter the default container or a named one:

box enter
box enter my-ubuntu

List containers:

box list

Remove one or more containers:

box rm my-ubuntu
box rm -f container1 container2

Use a higher log level for troubleshooting:

box --log-level debug create --distro arch

Source

github.com/subpop/applebox