As a Linux noob, I felt amazing to find out I can use docker for my applications. Have you tried Docker?

[EternalSeeker]

Hello,

 

So for a few months I have been using CentOS 7 to run my hpc applications as a learning exercise due to covid (learning new software and validating many cases). I wanted to use CentOS 7 as a daily OS but I realized it might be harder because I needed to have work arounds for some of the OpenSource applications that require newer dependencies. I found out about docker/moby/podman and decided to use it for applications I need CentOS for. 

 

And here we are, native performance of all my commercial software running in a systemd enabled CentOS7 environment running on the latest Fedora 33 distro.

 

Has anyone here used containers for something similar?

 

Stay Safe and Have a great day!

[mahyar]

yeah i use docker for my server great way to make sure everything is clean and neat

[WereCatf]

53 minutes ago, EternalSeeker said:

Has anyone here used containers for something similar?

There are lots of other container-systems than Docker/Podman/etc. Yes, I have briefly tested Docker, but I far prefer full-blown LXD-containers.

[EternalSeeker]

15 hours ago, WereCatf said:

There are lots of other container-systems than Docker/Podman/etc. Yes, I have briefly tested Docker, but I far prefer full-blown LXD-containers.

I know this method isn't really considered the docker way but it gives me native performance in apps that hit cpu, sometimes gpu and memory hard without overhead of vm"s or the need to use gpu passthrough. If say I was running solidworks then yeah I'd use vm with gpu passthrough. 

[igormp]

16 hours ago, EternalSeeker said:

native performance of all my commercial software

Keep in mind that running something in docker IS native, there's no overhead on doing so, unless you artificially limit something like CPU or RAM through cgroups.

 

Anyway, docker is pretty nice for reproducible and immutable builds, I mostly use it for deployments.

[WereCatf]

4 hours ago, EternalSeeker said:

I know this method isn't really considered the docker way but it gives me native performance in apps that hit cpu, sometimes gpu and memory hard without overhead of vm"s or the need to use gpu passthrough. If say I was running solidworks then yeah I'd use vm with gpu passthrough. 

LXD-containers aren't VMs, so I'm not sure how your comment is related to what I said.

[EternalSeeker]

52 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

LXD-containers aren't VMs, so I'm not sure how your comment is related to what I said.

LXD can also use vm images, that's why I initially talked about it. Anyway can LXC containers use host directories, host gpu and display gui to host display? I might try it.

[EternalSeeker]

4 hours ago, igormp said:

Keep in mind that running something in docker IS native, there's no overhead on doing so, unless you artificially limit something like CPU or RAM through cgroups.

 

Anyway, docker is pretty nice for reproducible and immutable builds, I mostly use it for deployments.

Ah yes, I have seen exact render times in blender cycles between centos7 bare bore install and centos7 docker image. So yes  

[WereCatf]

12 minutes ago, EternalSeeker said:

Anyway can LXC containers use host directories, host gpu and display gui to host display? I might try it.

Yes, using host-directories and devices is easy. Setting it up to display GUI-apps on one's desktop is a tad trickier and not as easy as with Docker, so if you just want easy and quick access to GUI-apps, LXD-containers may not be the best choice. On the other hand, if you don't mind the initial setup being trickier, LXD-containers are far more capable, so YMMV.