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

• wmf 10y ago
  LXD
  • soulbadguy 10y ago
    Can it be used to virtualize app with gui/X11 ?
    • wmf 10y ago
      Presumably if you ssh -Y into the container.
• nwrk 10y ago
  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 https://github.com/phusion/baseimage-docker [1] https://kitematic.com/ https://kitematic.com/ [2] http://shipyard-project.com/walkthrough/ http://shipyard-project.com/walkthrough/ [3] http://fabiorehm.com/blog/2014/09/11/running-gui-apps-with-docker/ http://fabiorehm.com/blog/2014/09/11/running-gui-apps-with-d...
• gmuslera 10y ago
  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.