Rocket is https://github.com/coreos/rocket

----
I've often been thinking about container systems like Rocket. Of course there is Docker. Docker is growing so fast that it has been hard to keep up with its development.

Rocket is very young and now is a good time to start following along. I've read through the specs and code. I really like the minimalism (which is largely due to its infancy.)

I am a fan of the ACI format, but less so of systemd. I'll just get over it.

----
I tried to compile Rocket myself on an Ubuntu 12.04 VM, but have failed to get it running a container. Not sure if this is a host machine issue or bugs in the software.

----
Just found https://github.com/coreos/rocket/blob/master/Documentation/getting-started-ubuntu-trusty.md

----
I had done everything in the trusty guide on precise, but it didn't work. My best guess is due to kernel support in precise isn't on par with trusty.

**Edit**: I am back to having the same error on trusty as precise. It likely did work on precise, but something else is going on.

**Edit 2**: it appears I am not the only one with the issue: https://github.com/coreos/rocket/issues/158

----
After reading some Hacker News comments (ignoring 90% of them because they talk about Docker) I found this little gem from Brandon:

> It isn't tied to systemd. The stage1 that is in the current prototype uses systemd to monitor and fork processes but we would love to see other stage1's that configure other process runners. For example configure and run a qemu-kvm filesystem as the container.

> Also, even though it is using systemd to monitor and fork processes a design goal is to run on all Linux's that have a modern Kernel.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8682960

----
Great simple tutorial on building an ACI: https://github.com/kelseyhightower/rocket-tutorial

----
My current issue with Rocket: https://github.com/coreos/rocket/issues/198

----
It occurs to me that I can build an ACI without using `actool`. An ACI is just a tarball.

----
The ACI file layout and a simple way to create them without `actool`:

https://github.com/coreos/rocket/blob/master/app-container/SPEC.md#image-layout