Using apt to install general packages

[mdavis36]

Spheral supports external developers and many of them are running basic linux systems (so not building the world with spack). I'd like to be able to use the rse containers for testing different compiler versions, however we need a variety of packages from apt that we would often tell debian/ubuntu users to install.

Trying to run apt install on the containers usually fails to find any packages, I tried apt update and apt upgrade but then apt breaks, stating it cant find the proper glibcxx ... at runtime. Is there any way to be able to use apt alongside the Spack environment here?

[vsoch]

Can you give me a specific container to test and reproduce the issue?

[vsoch]

@mdavis36 checking in again - would you be interested in us maintaining strictly ubuntu bases? This would be fairly easy to do, and if so, what do you need in them?