Ask HN: Is there an container based alternative to virtualbox/vmware player?

2 points·soulbadguy··5 comments

I am trying to virtualize ubuntu on ubuntu and vmware player/virtualBox seems overkill. Is there any container based full OS virtualization system out there?

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Stick with docker if possible, you will get more performance among other benefits.

Check excellent Phusion's base image [0] if you need (pardon me) "container like VM".

For the gui: Docker has native Kitematic app [1], but not sure about state on linux. I would recommend you to check Shipyard project [2] as Docker Gui

Docker also support containerized X11 desktop apps [3].

[0] https://github.com/phusion/baseimage-docker

[1] https://kitematic.com/

[2] http://shipyard-project.com/walkthrough/

[3] http://fabiorehm.com/blog/2014/09/11/running-gui-apps-with-d...

How "full" will be the OS virtualization may rule out containers, i.e. what about things that are meant for outside containers like playing directly with devices or loading kernel modules? You can give a container privileged access, but if you don't want to affect your main system that may not be used. Maybe a thin VM environment (like qemu/kvm/xen) less expensive in resources than vbox or vmware, and you can still manage them with kimchi or virt-manager.

If you don't want that much "full" access, and still want something that behaves like a full OS, and if you don't want docker's opinionated approach to containers, you can use lxc+lxd for that.

LXD

Can it be used to virtualize app with gui/X11 ?

Presumably if you ssh -Y into the container.

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