Video: Fedora 23 LXC - Debian SID and CentOS 7 XFCE containers via X2Go

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Being a LONG-TIME OpenVZ user, I've been avoiding LXC some. Mainly because it wasn't quite done yet. I thought I'd give it a try on Fedora 23 to see how well it works... and the answer is surprisingly... fairly well. I made two screencast (without sound). I just used the lxc-{whatever} tools rather than virt-manager. Both containers just use the default network config (DHCP handed out via DNSMasq provided by libvirtd) which is NAT'ed private addresses... and were automatically configured and just worked.

Here's a list of all of the container OS Templates they offer on x86:

centos 6 amd64 default 20160205_02:16
centos 6 i386 default 20160205_02:16
centos 7 amd64 default 20160205_02:16
debian jessie amd64 default 20160204_22:42
debian jessie i386 default 20160204_22:42
debian sid amd64 default 20160207_11:58
debian sid i386 default 20160204_22:42
debian squeeze amd64 default 20160204_22:42
debian squeeze i386 default 20160204_22:42
debian wheezy amd64 default 20160204_22:42
debian wheezy i386 default 20160204_22:42
fedora 21 amd64 default 20160205_01:27
fedora 21 i386 default 20160205_01:27
fedora 22 amd64 default 20160205_01:27
fedora 22 i386 default 20160205_01:27
gentoo current amd64 default 20160205_14:12
gentoo current i386 default 20160205_14:12
opensuse 12.3 amd64 default 20160205_00:53
opensuse 12.3 i386 default 20160205_00:53
oracle 6.5 amd64 default 20160205_11:40
oracle 6.5 i386 default 20160205_11:40
plamo 5.x amd64 default 20160207_11:59
plamo 5.x i386 default 20160207_13:13
ubuntu precise amd64 default 20160205_03:49
ubuntu precise i386 default 20160205_03:49
ubuntu trusty amd64 default 20160205_03:49
ubuntu trusty i386 default 20160205_03:49
ubuntu trusty ppc64el default 20160201_03:49
ubuntu vivid amd64 default 20160205_03:49
ubuntu vivid i386 default 20160205_03:49
ubuntu wily amd64 default 20160205_03:49
ubuntu wily i386 default 20160205_03:49
ubuntu xenial amd64 default 20160205_03:49
ubuntu xenial i386 default 20160205_03:49

The first one shows the basics of LXC installation on Fedora 23 (per their wiki page on the subject) as well as creating a Debian SID container, getting it going, installing a lot of software on it including XFCE and most common desktop software... and accessing it via X2Go... and configuring XFCE the way I like it. This one was made on my home laptop and my network is a bit slow so I cut out a few long portions where packages were downloading and installing but everything else is there... yes including quite a bit of waiting for stuff to happen.


lxc-on-fedora-23-debian-sid-GUI-container.webm (25 MB, ~41.5 minutes)

The second video is very similar to the first but it is a remote ssh session with my work machine (where the network is way faster) and shows making a CentOS 7 container, installing XFCE and the same common desktop software, and then connecting to it via X2Go using an ssh proxy, and configuring XFCE how I like it. It was done in a single, un-edited take and includes a bit of waiting as stuff downloads and installs... so you get the complete thing from start to finish.


lxc-on-fedora-23-centos-7-GUI-container.webm (22.7 MB, ~31 minutes)

I recorded the screencasts with vokoscreen at 25 frames-per-second @ slightly larger than 720p resolution... and then converted them to webm (vp9) with ffmpeg @ 200kbit video. They compressed down amazing well. I recommend playback in full-screen as the quality is great. Enjoy!