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An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

lwn.net

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Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#11

Post by GordonS »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

This is one of those things that I've always been too scared to ask so I'm just going to ask it now: Is there a distro designed exclusively for running docker (and perhaps other) containers that also contains a friendly web UI for people who have no idea how docker actually works? I'm familiar with Proxmox, but it doesn't natively support docker.

VMware's Photon OS is largely designed as a container host - I've been using it for a few years now, and it's excellent. The team are really receptive to external contributors too (it's hosted on GitHub)!

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#12

Post by oso2k »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

This is one of those things that I've always been too scared to ask so I'm just going to ask it now: Is there a distro designed exclusively for running docker (and perhaps other) containers that also contains a friendly web UI for people who have no idea how docker actually works? I'm familiar with Proxmox, but it doesn't natively support docker.

Fedora/RHEL have Cockpit, MicroShift, OKD, OpenShift Local, MiniKube, k3s, MicroK8s, TrueNAS SCALE

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#14

Post by JHonaker »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

This is one of those things that I've always been too scared to ask so I'm just going to ask it now: Is there a distro designed exclusively for running docker (and perhaps other) containers that also contains a friendly web UI for people who have no idea how docker actually works? I'm familiar with Proxmox, but it doesn't natively support docker.

OpenSUSE MicroOS is basically built around the idea of an "immutable" (read disincentivized to change) core while the majority of user space runs in a Podman container.

It was originally developed as an absolute minimal distro for running containers on servers, but the immutable desktop movement led them to develop a desktop user-facing variant.

Other ideas that are very similar: Fedora SilverBlue (very similar, more mature) and VanillaOS (based on Flatpak insteak of Podman/Docker, very new)

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#15

Post by klysm »

legrande wrote: post #13

You can always have a vanilla Debian or vanilla Arch install and add things on an as-needed basis and build the OS from scratch, minimizing complexity and have them as single-duty OSes.

Yes but those aren’t single purpose OS’s like the ones described here. These typically come with immutability and a vastly reduced attack surface

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#19

Post by dwiechert »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

This is one of those things that I've always been too scared to ask so I'm just going to ask it now: Is there a distro designed exclusively for running docker (and perhaps other) containers that also contains a friendly web UI for people who have no idea how docker actually works? I'm familiar with Proxmox, but it doesn't natively support docker.

You might look into Umbrel - https://umbrel.com/

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#20

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

dharmab wrote: post #17
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #16

Interesting that alpine didn't get mentioned, i thought that was the most common option for a slim Linux running inside containers.

Alpine is a general purpose OS; You can run it as a desktop or server OS on real hardware.

still they do have a strong focus on size reduction, like using musl instead of glibc.
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