[lxc-users] I think terminology of LXD & LXC still confuses newcomers

[Simos Xenitellis]

On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 5:19 PM, brian mullan <bmullan.mail at gmail.com> wrote:
> Long time users of LXC and now LXD understand the difference & difference of
> purpose.
>
> However, it seems to me that for newcomers to LXD the continuance of
> reference to LXC seems to cause confusion for those people when doing google
> searches & they find CLI references/examples for the original LXC syntax.
> Then they have problems with LXD because of that confusion.
>
> example:
>
> https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/introduction/
>
> describes LXD as..
>
>
> LXD isn't a rewrite of LXC, in fact it's building on top of LXC to provide a
> new,
> better user experience. Under the hood, LXD uses LXC through liblxc and its
> Go binding
> to create and manage the containers.
> It's basically an alternative to LXC's tools and distribution template
> system
> with the added features that come from being controllable over the network.
>

The wording can always be made better to appeal to new users as well.
At the bottom of the linuxcontainers.org website, there is a link for
"Improve this website"
that leads to https://github.com/lxc/linuxcontainers.org (the content
of the website itself).

Here is my attempt:

LXD is management software for Linux containers (known as LXC).
Although the Linux containers source package comes with container
management tools,
LXD offers additional features, including the facility to manage
containers over the network.
LXD manages Linux containers through the liblxc library, as does the
LXC source package.


>
> Now if you were "new" to LXC and LXD and do a google search for LXC example
> use/configs etc you find many examples like:
>
> http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/linux-and-open-source/how-to-create-lxc-system-containers-to-isolate-services/
>
>
> where they show use of the old lxc-create command etc
>
> or another...
>
> https://levlaz.org/installing-node-js-ghost-in-an-ubuntu-14-04-lxc-container/
>
>
> where again they use the old LXC syntax to implement node.js in LXC.
>
> etc.
>
> People follow those types of original LXC examples (or others) and then
> can't figure out why when with LXD installed they don't see their containers
> by doing (again just an example:
>
> lxc list
>
>
> or other LXD syntax type commands.
>
> Same goes for differences in the "config" file for original LXC vs how an
> LXD container's confg is accomplised (or even where the files are).
>
> The LXD developers have done an incredible job!
>
> I'm only asking this question to see, what if anything, can/could be done to
> lessen confusion encountered by new LXD users.
>
> Especially those that then go out and google "lxc" and find so many examples
> of the "old" lxc usage/implementations/configurations?
>

A few years ago, there was little idea how Linux containers would evolve.
It's up to us to write newer guides and howtos so that search engines
will link to the new ones.

Simos