Hi…
I come from the proxmox user camp and already use “containers” there. As far as LXC or Incus is concerned, I’m a complete newcomer. That means I don’t like to study instructions for LXD at the beginning because it will all soon be obsolete. Is there already something that guides me through the options and functions? I’m only interested atm in linuxcontainer, not vm, due to the limitations of my provider. That already is using KVM Qemu as platform.
Thank you
… An example of what I plan to do. A Docker host with Debian 12 and ext4 as / should also run Incus. Now I read in the LXD documentation that DIR storage is said to be very slow. Using BTRFS now would be very time-consuming to change. How can I evaluate this?
If you go to Stephane’s web site here (Linux Containers - Incus - Try it online) you can actually try an Incus demo - he gives you example commands (just click on them and they copy into an actual web-accessible “machine” where you can launch vm’s or containers). You can quickly get a feel for how Incus works and some of the more common commands you’ll want to get familiar with. Spend 20 minutes playing. It’s totally free and gives you insights as to how this might be for you. Ultimately, if you want to use Incus (or lxd - or anything new) you will have to RTFM of course (or use google of course). I personally use zfs and it’s compelling - one command to install on linux, and one command to get a pool you can use for whatever you want. I create a pool, and then a specific dataset for my lxd (soon to be incus) containers and vms. That’s the last time I have to execute a zfs command as Incus handles everything transparently after that. I have never used btrfs but I am sure it too is competent (zfs is just more developed and always works for me so I have no need to change what’s never broken for me). GL.
Thanks for your reply.
I’ve already played through the test environment a few times.
Now at the beginning I was unsure how to answer the questions about the “incus admin init”. and of course I’ll do RTFM, that’s what I asked for… for example for details about the initial network configuration after starting the command above. As far as storage is concerned, I also have Docker on the server with almost 40 containers, which of course also need space and it would be difficult for me to determine how much storage is needed by Docker vs Incus… 
I assume you have just one disk to play with, check? In which case, you could init Incus and give it a fixed disk drive size using a loop device. It’s not super fast of course, but at least you pre-manage disk utilization. That would allow you to play “for real” with Incus containers and even vm’s and it won’t let you run out of storage. The incus network can be (and by default is) setup by Incus using a bridge which it sets up at the Incus admin init stage. You can send traffic to/from the host via incus config commands - it’s pretty simple albeit command-line driven. That said, if you use a lot of docker and you like it, I’m not so sure you’ll get much out of Incus? If you want vm’s, I would argue virt-manager is “even better” than incus today. I typically use lxd when I can get away with a container (which is 95% of my virtualization), and virt-manager when I absolutely have to have a vm. I have not yet found lxd vm’s to be as solid as those I can spin up in virt-manager (that’s probably more my linux weakness than lxd’s). I personally don’t use docker if I can avoid it, but that’s only because I have been “brought up” by lxd since v 2.0 and I am too old to learn anything else (I will however migrate to Incus). GL.
Yes, only a small disk. And not running local. The system is a vm in a datacenter, what the reason is, that it is not possible to run virtual machines on it due to restrictions of the hoster. And yes, Docker has it’s advantages, but sometimes i like to setup my own systems, and not everything is available in a ready to run container. So i would like to use both systems on one server. So, if i could use the DIR storage, to have both systems side by side… Thats the idea… I assume the usage of a loop device would use a fixed storage space… Btw, at my homeserver I’m running Proxmox VE with some kvm systems. Windows and some Debian… So there’s no need of that on my remote hosted system.
Yes to loop directory. And you get to fix the size of that so nothing bad can happen to your host. Good luck. I personally am very happy with lxd (now Incus - I am moving as soon as 0.1 is released, i.e. from tomorrow I start to play :-))