Cyril

Inkcut + Distrobox

2025/08 revisit

See notes for details

Overview:

  1. Create the container (into which inkcut will be installed)
    • Define & Assemble the container
    • Install inkcut
  2. Create an inkcut.desktop file
    Make InkCut conveniently launchable from host machine
  3. Modify USB-serial permissions
    Address ‘permission-denied’ when sending data to the cutter

Create the container

& build/install inkcut

Define & Assemble the container

# create directory to isolate our distrobox shenanigans
mkdir $HOME/inkcutBox && cd $_

# Create 'inkcutBox.ini'; container definition file
cat >$HOME/inkcutBox/inkcutBox.ini <<EOL
[inkcutBox]
image=docker.io/library/alpine:3.22
home=$HOME/inkcutBox
pull=true
additional_packages="gcc cups-dev musl-dev linux-headers"
additional_packages="python3-dev pipx py3-qt5"
additional_flags="--env PIPX_HOME=$HOME/inkcutBox/.local/share"
additional_flags="--env PIPX_INKCUT=venvs/inkcut/lib/python*/site-packages/inkcut"
exported_bins="/usr/bin/pipx"
exported_bins_path="$HOME/.local/bin"
EOL

# Assemble/create the container
distrobox-assemble create --file inkcutBox.ini

The above command:

Install inkcut

# Install inkcut, allowing access to the system site-packages dir
pipx install inkcut --system-site-packages

Test proper creation by attempting to launch inkcut

# Direct launch
distrobox-enter --name inkcutBox -- $HOME/inkcutBox/.local/bin/inkcut

Successful launch?
Great! Let’s add an entry/icon for the graphical launcher.

Create inkcut.desktop file & icon

The following commands will Create an inkcut.desktop file that will make inkcut available as a clickable icon from the app menu of the host machine, just like any other graphical app.

# copy source icon for system use
distrobox-enter --name inkcutBox -- sh -c \
'cp $PIPX_HOME/$PIPX_INKCUT/res/media/inkcut.svg \
/home/$USER/.local/share/icons'

# Create 'inkcut.desktop' (configured as shown below)
cat >$HOME/.local/share/applications/inkcut.desktop <<EOL
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Inkcut
GenericName=Terminal entering Inkcut
Comment=Terminal entering Inkcut
Categories=Distrobox;System;Utility
Exec=/usr/bin/distrobox-enter inkcutBox -- $HOME/inkcutBox/.local/bin/inkcut
Icon=$HOME/.local/share/icons/inkcut.svg
Keywords=distrobox;
NoDisplay=false
Terminal=false
Type=Application
EOL

Within seconds of this file being created, it was available from the app-menu
(Tested on Gnome).

USB-serial permissions

Once a serial device is configured in inkcut, you may experience a permission denied ... ttyUSB0 error when attempting to send a job.
(I use a usb-serial adapter cable that shows up as /dev/ttyUSB0)

  1. Make sure that your user is a member of the dialout group on the host machine
    #in hindsight, I question whether this is needed considering the udev rule that is used for the container workflow.
  2. A udev-rule is needed to allow passthrough of serial-device permissions to the container.
    Inkcut will need this to send the job over serial interface to the cutter

One option is to alter the permisisons of usb + tty devices to allow other to read & write thereto.
Info on the device was gathered by using udevadm info -a -n /dev/ttyACM0

Contents of /etc/udev/rules.d/50-usb-serial.rules :

SUBSYSTEM=="tty", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", MODE:="0666", ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1", ENV{ID_MM_PORT_IGNORE}="1"

Another option is to change the owner of the devices (group seems to have no effect)

KERNEL=="ttyACM[0-9]*", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", OWNER="cyril", GROUP="dialout", MODE:="0660", ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1", ENV{ID_MM_PORT_IGNORE}="1"
KERNEL=="ttyUSB[0-9]*", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", OWNER="cyril", GROUP="dialout", MODE:="0660", ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1", ENV{ID_MM_PORT_IGNORE}="1"

Reload udev

sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
sudo udevadm trigger

Now, unplug your serial device and plug it back in.
You should notice the change in permissions or ownership (or whatever) both on the host OS and in the container.

# Host OS
ls -l /dev/ttyACM0
crw-rw-rw-. 1 cyril dialout 166, 0 Aug 16 09:30 /dev/ttyACM0

# Container
📦[cyril@inkcutBox cyril]$ ls -l /dev/ttyACM0
crw-rw-rw- 1 cyril nobody 166, 0 Aug 16 09:30 /dev/ttyACM0

Notes

Installing inkcut to a container

Is this necessary? No, but…
The isolation from the host OS makes the installation MUCH less prone to breaking as a result of updates to the host OS, or packaging & configuration conficts.
Once the needs of the distrobox have been sorted, the declarative distrobox.ini captures everything needed to recreate the fully-functional container.
The distrobox approach works exactly the same on a LARGE number of linux distributions.
Containerized apps (flatpak, distrobox, docker, etc) are considered good practice even if the system is mutable.

Distributions/Packages

My current distribution of choice comes with Distrobox, so that’s what this revisit uses.
Toolbox works VERY similarly, and would be fine to use as well.

I chose alpine as the container OS because it’s small, and starts with a minimal set of packages installed.
This is a low-needs project, so the low-profile OS is perfect.

’’’

alt launch commands

distrobox-enter –name inkcutBox – sh -c ‘$HOME/.local/bin/inkcut’ /usr/bin/distrobox-enter –name inkcutBox – sh -c ‘$HOME/.local/bin/inkcut’ /usr/bin/distrobox-enter –name inkcutBox – .local/bin/inkcut ```