From hugo.fisher at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 08:51:27 2026 From: hugo.fisher at gmail.com (Hugh Fisher) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2026 18:51:27 +1000 Subject: [clug] Container tools between unshare and Docker? Message-ID: Can anyone recommend some container tools/utilities for file system only containers, somewhere between unshare and Docker in complexity? I'm developing a couple of programs that combine Python and the C++ Qt framework. Ideally I want to test my code against different versions of Python, and against two different versions of Qt (5 and 6) which themselves have two different Python bindings (PySide and PyQt). Because Qt includes a lot of headers and libraries and some CLI binaries I need more isolation / separation than just Python venv and pip, but I don't need the full Docker/Kubernetes sandboxing. I want containers with their own overlay file system, initially empty, in which I can install Python and Qt, build and run my programs, then discard. I don't need a new user namespace or a new network interface, I trust myself :-) My impression is that I can make this work with a combination of tar'd file systems and unshare, but doing so will be a bit fiddly and tedious. Docker seems like overkill in that I'd spend more time figuring out how to "unprotect" the base system, allow multiple processes in the container, etc than I'd save. So, is there anything in between I should look at? LXC/LXD perhaps? -- cheers, Hugh (or Hugo) Fisher From duncan_roe at optusnet.com.au Fri Sep 25 01:16:48 2026 From: duncan_roe at optusnet.com.au (Duncan Roe) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 11:16:48 +1000 Subject: [clug] Container tools between unshare and Docker? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Hugh, On Thu, Sep 24, 2026 at 06:51:27PM +1000, linux wrote: > Can anyone recommend some container tools/utilities for file system > only containers, somewhere between unshare and Docker in complexity? > > I'm developing a couple of programs that combine Python and the C++ Qt > framework. Ideally I want to test my code against different versions > of Python, and against two different versions of Qt (5 and 6) which > themselves have two different Python bindings (PySide and PyQt). > > Because Qt includes a lot of headers and libraries and some CLI > binaries I need more isolation / separation than just Python venv and > pip, but I don't need the full Docker/Kubernetes sandboxing. I want > containers with their own overlay file system, initially empty, in > which I can install Python and Qt, build and run my programs, then > discard. I don't need a new user namespace or a new network interface, > I trust myself :-) > > My impression is that I can make this work with a combination of tar'd > file systems and unshare, but doing so will be a bit fiddly and > tedious. Docker seems like overkill in that I'd spend more time > figuring out how to "unprotect" the base system, allow multiple > processes in the container, etc than I'd save. > > So, is there anything in between I should look at? LXC/LXD perhaps? > > -- > cheers, > Hugh (or Hugo) Fisher > I use chroot and hard links for something vaguely similar. It's in https://github.com/duncan-roe/mkchroot but it's Slackware-specific. Cheers ... Duncan.