If it doesn't need to access root files, you install it inside a container.
toolbox create
toolbox enter
Takes just a few seconds and now you're inside a traditional Fedora 40 CLI system that can access your /home but otherwise has a separate file system. This is great for setting up a dev environment without polluting the host system.

If it does need to access root files, you can install it with rpm-ostree, which basically creates a new OS image that contains the app.
rpm-ostree install --apply-live [package name]
But if you feel like you need that a lot, a traditional Linux system would be a better fit.

The way I use Silverblue is kinda like Android. All the apps I need for my general purpose laptop are available as flatpaks. The OS itself kind of disappears in the background. I set it to update itself automatically without telling me and I actually don't do anything with the terminal or outside of /home . The OS is a GUI application launcher, which is exactly what I was looking for after 20 years of tinkering with Linux.

[–] lambda 2 points 5 months ago

Thanks for the input! I'll look more into these

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They recommend using brew to install CLI apps. There are also dev containers and toolbx, but the latter is not recommended.

https://universal-blue.discourse.group/docs?category=6

[–] lambda 2 points 5 months ago

Huh, I thought brew was a Mac thing. Thanks for the link. I'll give it some reading.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You typically do that in a container and use the container.

If you really want it on your system root you can layer it in as a commit on top of the distro with rpm-ostree. System upgrades should change the commits below yours but keep your modifications on top.

[–] lambda 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

So, if I wanted to install zsh I would need to use a container for it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

For something like that where you likely want it everywhere, I would probably layer it on top of the base system (with rpm-ostree install zsh). That uses the same Fedora package management as dnf but applies it as a changeset on the immutable system instead of modifying things directly.

Something more specific to a single category of task (I'm thinking like Rust or Python tooling) you might want to leave in a container.