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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
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  4. Operating Systems
  5. LinuxKit vs Ubuntu

LinuxKit vs Ubuntu

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Stacks80.4K
Followers59.1K
Votes468
LinuxKit
LinuxKit
Stacks13
Followers37
Votes1
GitHub Stars8.5K
Forks1.0K

LinuxKit vs Ubuntu: What are the differences?

  1. Installation Process: LinuxKit is designed for building container images, so its installation process is streamlined and minimal, focusing on the essentials required for container deployment. On the other hand, Ubuntu is a full-fledged operating system that comes with a wide range of features and packages, resulting in a more complex installation process with various configuration options.

  2. Resource Usage: LinuxKit is optimized for minimal resource usage due to its focus on running containers efficiently. It is lightweight and modular, allowing users to include only the components they need for their specific use case. In contrast, Ubuntu is a more traditional operating system with numerous built-in services and features that may lead to higher resource consumption when compared to LinuxKit.

  3. Maintenance and Updates: LinuxKit follows a minimalist approach to maintenance and updates, with the emphasis on simplicity and speed. It provides a more streamlined process for managing updates and patches, catering to container-based environments that require frequent changes. Conversely, Ubuntu has a more comprehensive update system with a larger package repository and support for a wide range of software, resulting in a more involved maintenance process.

  4. Community Support: Ubuntu, being one of the most popular Linux distributions, has a vast and active community that provides extensive support, documentation, and resources for users. This community-driven approach ensures that users can easily find solutions to their issues and access a wealth of knowledge. In contrast, LinuxKit, while backed by Docker, may have a smaller community compared to Ubuntu, resulting in potentially fewer resources and support options available for users.

  5. Customization Options: LinuxKit offers a high level of customization options, allowing users to tailor their container images and operating system configurations to their specific requirements. With a modular design, users can select and include only the components needed, resulting in lean and efficient deployments. Ubuntu, while also customizable, may have more pre-installed packages and features that cannot be easily removed, potentially leading to a less streamlined and tailored environment compared to LinuxKit.

  6. Target Audience: LinuxKit is primarily targeted towards developers and organizations looking to create lightweight, secure, and portable container images for their applications. Its focus on containerization makes it ideal for cloud-native environments and microservices architectures. On the other hand, Ubuntu caters to a broader audience, including desktop users, servers, and cloud deployments, providing a more versatile and comprehensive platform for various use cases.

In Summary, LinuxKit offers a minimalist, resource-efficient, and customizable approach to building container images, tailored for cloud-native environments, while Ubuntu provides a full-featured, versatile operating system with extensive community support and a broader target audience.

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Advice on Ubuntu, LinuxKit

Jerome/Zen
Jerome/Zen

Software Engineer

Aug 2, 2020

Decided

Global familiarity, free, widely used, and as a debian distro feels more comfortable when rapidly switching between local macOS and remote command lines.

CentOS does boast quite a few security/stability improvements, however as a RHEL-based distro, differs quite significantly in the command line and suffers from slightly less frequent package updates. (Could be a good or bad thing depending on your use-case and if it is public facing)

271k views271k
Comments
Simon
Simon

Developer Advocate at k6 / Load Impact

Mar 7, 2020

Decided

At the moment of the decision, my desktop was the primary place I did work. Due to this, I can't have it blow up on me while I work. While Arch is interesting and powerful, Ubuntu offers (at least for me) a lot more stability and lets me focus on other things than maintaining my own OS installation.

299k views299k
Comments
Govind
Govind

Aug 5, 2020

Decided

Ubuntu is much more faster over Windows and helps to get software and other utilities easier and within a short span of time compared to Windows.

Ubuntu helps to get robustness and resiliency over Windows. Ubuntu runs faster than Windows on every computer that I have ever tested. LibreOffice (Ubuntu's default office suite) runs much faster than Microsoft Office on every computer that I have ever tested.

270k views270k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Ubuntu
Ubuntu
LinuxKit
LinuxKit

Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’. It also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the world of computers.

LinuxKit, a toolkit for building custom minimal, immutable Linux distributions. Designed for building and running clustered applications, including but not limited to container orchestration such as Docker or Kubernetes.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
8.5K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
1.0K
Stacks
80.4K
Stacks
13
Followers
59.1K
Followers
37
Votes
468
Votes
1
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 230
    Free to use
  • 96
    Easy setup for testing discord bot
  • 57
    Gateway Linux Distro
  • 54
    Simple interface
  • 9
    Don't need driver installation in most cases
Cons
  • 5
    Demanding system requirements
  • 4
    Adds overhead and unnecessary complexity over Debian
  • 2
    Snapd installed by default
  • 1
    Systemd
Pros
  • 1
    Open Source
Integrations
No integrations available
Docker
Docker
Kubernetes
Kubernetes

What are some alternatives to Ubuntu, LinuxKit?

Kubernetes

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.

Rancher

Rancher

Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform.

Docker Compose

Docker Compose

With Compose, you define a multi-container application in a single file, then spin your application up in a single command which does everything that needs to be done to get it running.

Docker Swarm

Docker Swarm

Swarm serves the standard Docker API, so any tool which already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts: Dokku, Compose, Krane, Deis, DockerUI, Shipyard, Drone, Jenkins... and, of course, the Docker client itself.

Tutum

Tutum

Tutum lets developers easily manage and run lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers from any application. AWS-like control, Heroku-like ease. The same container that a developer builds and tests on a laptop can run at scale in Tutum.

Debian

Debian

Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide. FreeBSD is an operating system including a kernel and other software.

Portainer

Portainer

It is a universal container management tool. It works with Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Swarm and Azure ACI. It allows you to manage containers without needing to know platform-specific code.

Arch Linux

Arch Linux

A lightweight and flexible Linux distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.

Fedora

Fedora

Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that provides users with access to the latest free and open source software, in a stable, secure and easy to manage form. Fedora is the largest of many free software creations of the Fedora Project. Because of its predominance, the word "Fedora" is often used interchangeably to mean both the Fedora Project and the Fedora operating system.

Linux Mint

Linux Mint

The purpose of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use.

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