While studying and learning Docker, I’ve read a lot about linux distributions and I always read positive comments in Alpine because of it being lightweight but what are the disadvantages of using lightweight? I’m guessing that because it’s lightweight, it also has a disadvantage when it comes to scaling.. Also, what can be the advantage of a lightweight distribution compare to other distributions like Ubuntu? How can I test and feel the advantage?
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Answer
The main advantage of a lightweight distribution is that the resulting Docker image is small. It means that you can pull (download) the image on your servers much faster. The smaller is the image, the faster the deployment is going to be. So it’s actually an advantage for scaling up.
You can feel the advantage by running docker pull ubuntu and docker pull alpine. One command should be much faster to complete than the other (assuming you haven’t already pulled those images).
Concerning the disadvantages, people are used to use distributions like Ubuntu so they need to learn how to use Alpine (e.g. how to use the package manager). Another disadvantage can be the availability of packages or their compatibility even if more and more packages are available on Alpine.