A shell with packages in it that do not touch the real system:
arctic-shell python rust arctic-shell --keep ffmpeg arctic-shell --network node
The environment is built in its own root, entered with
chroot, and removed when you exit. Nothing is installed on
the machine itself. This is Arctic's equivalent of
nix-shell.
--keep | do not remove it on exit; reuse it next time |
--network | leave networking available inside |
-- cmd | run a command instead of an interactive shell |
--keep is sticky: once an environment is kept, a later
invocation without the flag will not silently delete it.
arctic gc
Prunes the package cache, orphaned dependencies, old generations and unused shell environments older than a week that were not kept.
Cleanup verifies every bind mount is actually unmounted, via
/proc/mounts, before removing anything. If it cannot
confirm that, it leaves the environment in place and says so — deleting a
tree with live mounts under it is not a mistake worth making twice.
More: arctic linux docs · install · declarative configuration · generations and rollback · init systems · kernels · packages (alpm) · desktops and audio · musl · building from source