Use Xen or KVM for guests on beta6?

[itimpi]

True VM's are really only required if you want to run a non-Linux OS (e.g. Windows) on the same box as unRAID.

 

Can docker run a Linux system with gui, accessed via vnc?

technical it can - but if you want a full OS I agree it is not the way to go. 

 

If you want a Linux OS with a full GUI then it is the same class as Windows and should use a VM, but this is not what most users seem to want. 

 

The feedback I gather watching this forum suggests most users only want to run a limited number of apps to enhance unRAID as a media server so a full OS is not required.    All the commonest apps already seem to be available in Dicker form with the list continually expanding.

[itimpi]

I want  VMs for: TVHeadend, JDownloader, TheRenamer, EMM, XBMC Database, OwnCloud

I know the last two are available as Docker containers, not sure about the others (are they all available as Linux apps?) .

 

It might be worth raising requests for someone to look at 'dockerizing' them if you do not have the skills to do it yourself.

 

Having said that I can see technical users (myself included) wanting to run VM's because we want a full OS available - not a small number of apps.  I want to be able to reduce the number of physical boxes I need, so if I can run multiple OS on the unRAID box with reasonable safety I see this as attractive.  The user who just wants to treat unRAID as an 'appliance' would probably prefer not to get involved in having the skills to run another OS.

[PeterB]

Can docker run a Linux system with gui, accessed via vnc?

technical it can - but if you want a full OS I agree it is not the way to go. 

 

If you want a Linux OS with a full GUI then it is the same class as Windows and should use a VM, but this is not what most users seem to want. 

 

The feedback I gather watching this forum suggests most users only want to run a limited number of apps to enhance unRAID as a media server so a full OS is not required.    All the commonest apps already seem to be available in Dicker form with the list continually expanding.

 

Okay.  My requirement is to run jdownloader 24/7, without having to leave a second machine running full time.  As far as I'm aware, jdownloader still cannot (easily) be run outside of a gui - hence I have one VM running ArchLinux/X.

[SSD]

Okay.  My requirement is to run jdownloader 24/7, without having to leave a second machine running full time.  As far as I'm aware, jdownloader still cannot (easily) be run outside of a gui - hence I have one VM running ArchLinux/X.

 

Appears jdownloader has a Web GUI. If the Web GUI satisfies your need, Docker is ideal.

[aptalca]

True VM's are really only required if you want to run a non-Linux OS (e.g. Windows) on the same box as unRAID.

 

Can docker run a Linux system with gui, accessed via vnc?

I did this but not on unraid.

 

On my windows laptop I ran an Ubuntu vm in virtualbox, installed docker and then built a container with Ubuntu desktop and xrdp. I was able to connect to it via windows remote desktop. However it kept giving me random occasional errors (unity 2d crashing errors but the gui kept working fine). Although the errors could be due to me being in an os within an os within another os (inception style lol)

 

So technically it worked but I only played around with it for a few minutes as it was just a challenge for myself.

 

If that's what you're after I suggest using a proper vm. I'm using an Ubuntu vm under xen with beta 5. It works flawlessly. It runs all my plugins and I can remote desktop in for various things

[jonp]

True VM's are really only required if you want to run a non-Linux OS (e.g. Windows) on the same box as unRAID.

 

Can docker run a Linux system with gui, accessed via vnc?

Short answer is yes.

[PeterB]

If that's what you're after I suggest using a proper vm. I'm using an Ubuntu vm under xen with beta 5. It works flawlessly. It runs all my plugins and I can remote desktop in for various things

 

Indeed - that's what I'm doing.  I have two ArchVMs running, one with xfce4/vnc, and one with console access only.

 

However, like several others, I'm stuck with beta5 because of the network file access problems in beta6.  However, beta5 still suffers from occasional 'cpu stall' system crashes.

 

I would like to move to a later release for Docker support (and better access to Dom0 shares), so that I can gradually transfer (some of?) my existing addons from VM to Docker.  However, I haven't had time to investigate what is necessary to convert my existing VMs to KVM.