Docker: Why use Linux containers on Windows?

docker docker-for-windows docker-desktop
Ingmar picture Ingmar · Jan 3, 2018 · Viewed 27.1k times · Source

I am using Win 10 Pro N (Version 1709) as a development machine and Windows Server 2016 Standard (Version 1607) as production server.

I am currently developing an ASP.NET Core 2 application with MongoDb as database.

A couple days ago I first stumbled over the idea, to run MongoDb as a Docker image.

I don't have any experience with Docker so far, but I managed to switch from Linux containers (default) to Windows containers on Windows machines.

Was this a good decision? Or is there any reason why I should use Linux containers instead of Windows containers in my scenario?

What e.g. if I should decide to deploy my application to a Linux server some time? In this case, would it wiser to start with Linux containers right from the beginning?

Answer

Mumrah81 picture Mumrah81 · Jan 3, 2018

Docker is not about virtualization but more about isolation.

A windows container will run on a windows host

A linux container will run on a linux host

Then some people wanted to run linux container on windows

  • First you needed to create a linux vm on windows to run the container
  • Now you can use LinuxKit to run the container but it's still a light VM

Then some people wanted to run windows container on linux

  • First you needed to create a windows vm on linux to run the container
  • Now you can use nothing more as of today

So the best bet is to start with a container aimed at your production servers

Related questions

Can Windows Containers be hosted on linux?

Is it possible to run Windows Containers on Linux? The scenario is based on an app written in the .NET (old net) and the Linux user that wants to run this with Docker to provide a net462 written API on …

Read More
What is linux equivalent of "host.docker.internal"

On Mac and Windows it is possible to use docker.for.mac.host.internal (replaces docker.for.mac.localhost) and docker.for.win.host.internal (replaces docker.for.win.localhost) host.docker.internal (Docker 18.03+) inside container. Is there one for …

Read More
Locating data volumes in Docker Desktop (Windows)

I'm trying to learn docker at the moment and I'm getting confused about where data volumes actually exist. I'm using Docker Desktop for Windows. (Windows 10) In the docs they say that running docker inspect on the object will give you …

Read More