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Comment by sorrymate | Hacker News Reader

It also makes running Docker a whole lot easier. I know there is Docker for Windows, but it feels like a red headed step child compared to Docker on Linux.

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^ that's now how Docker works. aka, the whole point of Docker is it doesn't matter what the host OS is.

That's not really true, OS definitely matters with Docker, both on the host and the container. Docker for Windows uses a VM to run Linux containers.

> OS definitely matters with Docker, both on the host and the container.

What OS in the container? A docker container is not a VM. Most of my containers are on the order of 10s of MB, and just contain a single binary.

I'm not disagreeing to any of that, what I'm saying is that to run a Linux Docker container on Windows, you'll need a Linux VM which runs Docker, which is exactly what Docker for Windows does for you using HyperV.

You're right on that, but there's no "OS" inside of a container to speak of.

A 10mb Linux container will still share the Linux kernel with the host, hence it's still running on Linux, even if it doesn't have any dynamic dependencies.

There's no OS "inside" the container, no, but it's still dependent on an OS.

I think we agree. :)

Docker can also make use of Windows containers.

I know, which is why I said Linux containers. Although, Docker on Linux can't run Windows containers, can it?

Certainly not, containers are a kernel level feature.

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