I got this idea the other day and I hope someone else might have also had it.

Basically, with Docker, containers, snapcraft, flatpak, and such we have prebuilt images that are used with overlay fs to mount the filesystem. I was wondering if this same technique can be applied to the host Linux system itself?

Imagine for example, on boot, you are greeted with a menu much like how grub allows you to select which partition to boot from. But instead you can select some pre-downloaded images of default systems of whatever distros you fancy.

Some benefits I see would be:

1. Much faster install, allowing to download prebuilt images instead of installing from source image on media.

2. Much easier to keep the OS up to date, instead of having to run major upgrades.

3. Quickly reset to original image (and take snapshots)

4. No wasted space by having to use different partitions.


So like I mentioned, I feel this might not be a unique idea, and I hope someone has some resources or thoughts on this. I think it could be the natural progression as this sort of tech was brought to devops via docker, then desktop apps with snapcraft and flatpak.

So what you're suggesting is something akin to Type 1 virtualization. Why not just use that, since pre-downloaded images would have to reside on the host drive anyway?

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Not really looking to go down the VM route, several drawbacks.

So, snapcraft and flatpak are application "containers" for lack of a better word, not OS containers. Docker is an OS and app "container". What you are describing is OS virtualization.

Sounds like Bedrock Linux.

Or UserLand on Android? https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...E8u9ggeV_6a4CA