I’m very curious if most people are simply using Ubuntu for the majority of Linux flavors out there for their Docker images or if they’re using others. Can you tell me if you are using Ubuntu and if not why..and what else are you using?
Is Ubuntu the defacto flavor just in general?
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Answer
Many people use the same OS in their containers they are used to using on servers and VPSes, thus the popular ones: Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, Centos. This provides familiarity but generally is much larger than necessary. This is not necessarily a well-informed technical decision as it is an empirical reality.
Once people realize Ubuntu and Red Hat are much bigger than needed in a container, they start choosing Debian more as it’s smaller, and when they get more hardcore about this start looking at Alpine Linux or going to unikernel type images.