Containers From Scratch • Liz Rice • GOTO 2018
What it is
Liz Rice live-codes a minimal container runtime in a few lines of Go at GOTO Amsterdam 2018. She explains namespaces, control groups and what a host knows about its containers.
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN considers it one of the best talks for understanding how containers work from the ground up.
- 6 people recommended it
- 6 different months
- 1 strong recommendations
- first 2018, last 2025
What HN commenters said
“Probably one of the most enlightening presentations I've seen in recent years, full-stop.”
Enlightening talk on containers from scratch
smoldesu, 2022-05 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: Best educational courses/MOOCs/videos/blogs/books taught by a Female?”
“Creating containers From Scratch - Liz Rice”
Building containers from scratch, in a list of best talks
komuW, 2018-10 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?”
“Liz Rice has done some awesome on-stage live coding, including a very small container runtime in go.”
Live-coded tiny container runtime in Go
sascha_sl, 2020-02 · Recommendation · in “Linux containers in 500 lines of code (2016)”
“Liz Rice gave a pretty good prsentation on this same topic in 2018”
Video presentation of building containers
pdpi, 2022-03 · Recommendation · in “Linux containers in 500 lines of code (2016)”
“Big fan of the following talk that explains how containers work from the ground up.”
Explains how containers work from the ground up
ashconnor, 2024-06 · Recommendation · in “Deep Diving into Docker and Containers: What It Is and How It Works”
“I loved this hands-on presentation Containers From Scratch by Liz Rice”
Hands-on live-coded talk building a container runtime from scratch
pss314, 2025-03 · Recommendation · in “Building a Linux Container Runtime from Scratch”
Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.
Topics: containers, namespaces, cgroups, go, live coding, docker
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