Yes, no doubt there's been some solutions within Linux distributions that think more outside the box (though I'm not familiar with Nix). There's many home-grown

Yes, no doubt there's been some solutions within Linux distributions that think more outside the box (though I'm not familiar with Nix). There's many home-grown solutions in production environments within orgnisations, too. As you suggest, these are probably 'pieces' of the puzzle, by no means 100% identical to how containers are used today. But I think we'd have ended up in a different place.