By Anurag Vishwakarma — Aug 17, 2025

What Makes Bootable Containers Different from Traditional Containers?

We all know containers run on top of an operating system. But what if the container itself could be the operating system? That’s the idea behind bootable containers.

Photo by Sean Fahrenbruch / Unsplash

If you’ve used containers before, you already know how much they’ve changed the way we build and run apps. Tools like Docker and Kubernetes made packaging and deploying software simpler than ever. But there’s another step forward you might not have seen yet: bootable containers.

The Container Recap

Traditional containers work by sharing the host's kernel while providing isolated userspace environments for applications. When you run a Docker container, you're essentially starting a segregated process on your host OS with its own filesystem, network interfaces, and process tree. The container runtime manages these containers on top of your existing operating system.

What Makes Bootable Containers Different?

Bootable containers flip this model on its head. Instead of running on top of an existing OS, they become the OS. A bootable container is packaged using container technologies but is designed to boot directly on bare metal or in a virtual machine.

Architecture comparison of Linux OS, regular containers, and bootable containers.

Bootable Containers vs. Traditional Linux OS

Aspect	Traditional Linux OS	Bootable Containers
Update Mechanism	Package-by-package with package manager	Atomic, image-based updates
Configuration	Often diverges between systems	Consistent across fleet
Filesystem	Mutable, changes in place	Immutable root filesystem
Installation	Unique per machine	Identical images across all systems
Customization	Ad-hoc changes on running system	Image rebuilding with version control
Rollbacks	Complex, often manual	Simple, atomic image rollback
Footprint	Often includes unnecessary packages	Minimal, purposefully designed
Security Profile	Larger attack surface	Reduced attack surface

With traditional OS, you typically install a base system and then modify it over time with package managers. Each system tends to evolve independently, leading to "configuration drift" where supposedly identical systems have subtle differences that cause problems.

Configuration drift is the gradual divergence of a system's actual configuration from its intended or desired state. This deviation often happens unintentionally due to manual changes, unmanaged updates, or other factors that cause systems to drift away from their baseline configuration over time.

Feature	Traditional Linux	Regular Containers	Bootable Containers
Execution	Direct on hardware	On host OS	Direct on hardware
Kernel	Own kernel	Shared host kernel	Own kernel
Updates	Package manager	Image replacement	OS image replacement
Isolation	None (full system)	Process/filesystem isolation	None (full system)
State	Stored on local disk	Ephemeral or volumes	Separate data volumes
Packaging	RPM/DEB packages	Container images	Container images
Boot Process	Traditional boot loader	Container runtime	Boot loader to container
Ideal For	General purpose	Application deployment	Infrastructure as code
Management	Configuration management	Container orchestration	Image-based orchestration

Bootable containers, on the other hand, treat the operating system as an immutable artifact. Rather than updating packages in place, you replace the entire OS image when updates are needed, ensuring consistency across your infrastructure.

Open Source Projects

Several projects are making bootable containers accessible:

1. bootc

bootc is Red Hat's initiative for creating bootable containers. It enables:

Direct booting of OCI container images as the host OS
Integration with Fedora and RHEL ecosystems
Standardized approach to bootable containers
Simple transactional updates and rollbacks

Introduction - bootc

bootc

2. LinuxKit

Created by Docker, LinuxKit is a toolkit for building custom operating systems that run containers. It offers:

Modular approach to OS building with containers
Security-first design philosophy
Minimal base with just what you need
Ability to target multiple platforms including cloud and IoT

3. Other Notable Projects

Flatcar Container Linux: A community-driven immutable Linux distribution forked from CoreOS
AWS Bottlerocket: AWS's minimal OS designed specifically for running containers
Fedora CoreOS: Red Hat's immutable OS combining the best of CoreOS and Project Atomic
Talos Linux: Kubernetes-focused OS built from container images.

What are the Use Cases?

1. Edge Computing at Scale

Scenario: A telecommunications company managing thousands of edge computing nodes across multiple countries.

Solution: Using bootable containers allows them to:

Deploy identical OS environments to all edge nodes
Update the entire fleet with a single tested image
Rollback problematic updates with a simple reboot
Reduce edge device management overhead

2. Hybrid Cloud Consistency

Scenario: An enterprise running workloads across on-premises data centers, AWS, and Azure.

Solution: Bootable containers provide:

The same base OS across all environments
Consistent behavior regardless of underlying infrastructure
Simplified compliance and security auditing
Reduced "works in my environment" issues

3. IoT Fleet Management

Scenario: Smart manufacturing deployment with hundreds of specialized devices on the factory floor.

Solution: Bootable containers deliver:

Reliable, atomic updates to all devices
Minimal OS footprint for resource-constrained devices
Automatic rollback if devices fail to come online after update
Unified management plane for the entire fleet

4. Security-Focused Operations

Scenario: Financial services company with strict security requirements.

Solution: Bootable containers enhance security through:

Reduced attack surface with minimal OS components
Immutable infrastructure preventing runtime modifications
Cryptographically verified OS images
Consistent security controls across all systems

Summary

Bootable containers reduce configuration drift, shrink the attack surface, and let you manage OS updates much like application releases. They’re especially useful for edge fleets, IoT, cloud-native node images, and security-sensitive environments.

Bootable containers package an entire operating system as an immutable, container-style image that can boot directly on hardware or in a VM. Unlike regular containers that depend on a host OS and share its kernel, bootable images become the OS: they provide a minimal, consistent runtime, atomic updates, and simple rollbacks.