Getting Started with Distrobox: A Beginner’s Guide to Easy Deployment

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How to Use Distrobox to Install ROCm 6.3 on Fedora 43 for AMD Instinct MI60 GPUs

If you recently upgraded to Fedora 43, you may have noticed that it now includes ROCm 6.4, the latest release of AMD’s open source GPU computing platform. Unfortunately, ROCm 6.4 no longer supports the AMD Instinct MI60 GPU, which can make it difficult to continue using your existing hardware.

Thankfully, with the help of an amazing open source tool called Distrobox, you can easily install and run an older version of ROCm (such as ROCm 6.3) in an isolated environment without downgrading your entire operating system.

What is Distrobox?

Distrobox is an open source project that allows you to run any Linux distribution inside your existing system using containers (via Docker or Podman). It seamlessly integrates the containerized environment with your host system, so you can access your files, graphical apps, and even GPUs directly.

In this tutorial, we will use Distrobox to install Ubuntu 22.04 inside Fedora 43, and then set up ROCm 6.3 to regain compatibility with the AMD Instinct MI60 GPU.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Install Distrobox

Fedora 43 includes Distrobox in its repositories, so installation is simple:

sudo dnf install distrobox

2. Create a Distrobox Container

Create a container based on Ubuntu 22.04:

distrobox create -n ubuntu-rocm63 -i ubuntu:22.04

Then, enter the container:

distrobox enter ubuntu-rocm63

3. Add the ROCm 6.3 Repository

Inside the Distrobox container:

wget https://repo.radeon.com/rocm/rocm.gpg.key
sudo mv rocm.gpg.key /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/
echo 'deb [arch=amd64] https://repo.radeon.com/rocm/apt/6.3/ jammy main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rocm.list
sudo apt update

4. Install ROCm 6.3

sudo apt install rocm-dev

Once installation is complete, verify the version with:

/opt/rocm/bin/rocminfo | grep "ROCm version"

5. Accessing GPU Resources

Distrobox supports GPU passthrough automatically when using Podman or Docker with the appropriate flags. You can add GPU access by running:

distrobox enter ubuntu-rocm63 --additional-flags "--device=/dev/kfd --device=/dev/dri"

Why Use Distrobox for ROCm?

• No need to downgrade your Fedora system
• Keep your main environment clean
• Run older or custom ROCm versions for hardware compatibility
• Easily update, remove, or recreate environments

Distrobox provides a flexible and safe way to keep older GPUs like the AMD Instinct MI60 functional on newer Linux distributions.

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Need Help Installing or Customizing ROCm?

If you would like one-on-one programming tutorials or custom help installing, updating, or migrating ROCm, I am available to assist. You can reach me directly through my contact page:

https://ojambo.com/contact