A Linux container host for virtualizing containerized apps

Apr 21, 2015 02:44 GMT  ·  By

After being sued for taking Linux kernel code and never contributing back, VMware had the pleasure of announcing Photon OS, a new Linux kernel-based operating system designed to help users run containers inside a virtual machine.

Photon OS is also the company’s first ever operating system. It was created from the ground up to boot extremely fast on VMWare platforms and offers a small footprint and a low-cost design that allows for visualizing containerized applications.

"Photon is a technology preview of a minimal Linux container host. It is designed to have a small footprint and boot extremely quickly on VMware platforms. Photon is intended to invite collaboration around running containerized applications in a virtualized environment," is stated on the project's website.

Highlights of Photon OS include support for Docker, Pivotal Garden, and rkt container technologies, support for VMware vSphere, a new YUM-compatible package management system that provides for efficient lifecycle management.

With this announcement, VMware also published the first pre-release version of Photon OS, distributed as an ISO image on the official website of the operating system. Please note that while the ISO image is distributed under a proprietary license, you can download or fork Photon's source code from its GitHub source repository.