Comparing Linux Distributions in Docker

I have the situation where I need to compare packages, settings, configurations across multiple Linux distributions. Docker is a great tool to pull images from all of the linux distributions to compare and contrast nearly anything you can think of. In this post we’ll create a simple docker compose file and run containers from the centos, alpine, ubuntu, archlinux, busybox and debian images.

The docker-compose.yaml file

First we’ll need to install docker-ce and docker-compose. Then create a simple docker-compose.yaml with the following content:

version: '3'
services:
  ubuntu:
    container_name: ubuntu
    image: ubuntu:latest
    command: tail -f /dev/null

  centos:
    container_name: centos
    image: centos:latest
    command: tail -f /dev/null

  busybox:
    container_name: busybox
    image: busybox:latest
    command: tail -f /dev/null

  alpine:
    container_name: alpine
    image: alpine:latest
    command: tail -f /dev/null

  archlinux:
    container_name: arch
    image: archlinux:latest
    command: tail -f /dev/null

  debian:
    container_name: debian
    image: debian:latest
    command: tail -f /dev/null

Run the Docker Containers from each Linux Distribution

To run all of our services in the docker-compose.yaml simply put them up.

$ docker-compose up -d
Creating network "docker-os-flight_default" with the default driver
Creating debian  ... done
Creating busybox ... done
Creating centos  ... done
Creating alpine  ... done
Creating ubuntu  ... done
Creating arch    ... done
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                COMMAND               CREATED             STATUS              PORTS               NAMES
1469626756c7        centos:latest        "tail -f /dev/null"   8 seconds ago       Up 6 seconds                            centos
fa20649984a2        alpine:latest        "tail -f /dev/null"   8 seconds ago       Up 6 seconds                            alpine
a32c0cdaf4c2        ubuntu:latest        "tail -f /dev/null"   8 seconds ago       Up 6 seconds                            ubuntu
a48c8db17d96        archlinux:latest     "tail -f /dev/null"   8 seconds ago       Up 6 seconds                            arch
406b88520418        busybox:latest       "tail -f /dev/null"   8 seconds ago       Up 6 seconds                            busybox
6fd8d03b2cbd        debian:latest        "tail -f /dev/null"   8 seconds ago       Up 6 seconds                            debian
9f79d7599965        qoomon/docker-host   "/entrypoint.sh"      6 months ago        Up 5 weeks                              dockerhost

Run commands for each distribution

Now that we have many different operating systems up let’s run some commands so we can compare. We can take a simple example and look at how the networking interfaces are set up. Note in some of the containers we need to run commands to update the respositories. E.g. docker-compose exec ubuntu apt update and docker-compose exec ubuntu apt install iproute2.

Example to compare IP Interface settings

CentOS

$ docker-compose exec centos ip address show
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: tunl0@NONE: <NOARP> mtu 1480 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1
    link/ipip 0.0.0.0 brd 0.0.0.0
3: ip6tnl0@NONE: <NOARP> mtu 1452 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1
    link/tunnel6 :: brd ::
130: eth0@if131: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default
    link/ether 02:42:ac:17:00:04 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff link-netnsid 0
    inet 172.23.0.4/16 brd 172.23.255.255 scope global eth0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Ubuntu

$ docker-compose exec ubuntu ip address show
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: tunl0@NONE: <NOARP> mtu 1480 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1
    link/ipip 0.0.0.0 brd 0.0.0.0
3: ip6tnl0@NONE: <NOARP> mtu 1452 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1
    link/tunnel6 :: brd ::
136: eth0@if137: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default
    link/ether 02:42:ac:17:00:07 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff link-netnsid 0
    inet 172.23.0.7/16 brd 172.23.255.255 scope global eth0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Example to compare Kernel versions

for c in centos alpine ubuntu archlinux busybox debian; do echo $c: `docker-compose exec $c uname -r`; done
centos: 4.9.184-linuxkit
alpine: 4.9.184-linuxkit
ubuntu: 4.9.184-linuxkit
archlinux: 4.9.184-linuxkit
busybox: 4.9.184-linuxkit
debian: 4.9.184-linuxkit

I was surprised to see them all the same!

Cleaning up

To clean up simply do a docker-compose down to stop containers and removes containers, networks, volumes, and images.

Where to go from here?

We have so many different linux distibutions running we can execute commands in each one and easily see the differences. I hope this was useful, let me know in the comments.

#docker