A Rust-Based Unikernel: First Version of a Rust-Based LibOS
I put alot of time and effort into unikernels and the technology is very appealing to me.<p>It has been something of a puzzle as to why they have gotten no traction in any significant way.<p>My conclusion is that there are other technologies (i.e. containers&#x2F;Docker) that are not as good as Unikernels, but are good enough to solve the core industry demand for lightweight nested virtualization.  And indeed containers solve that problem better than unikernels in two important ways which is boot time (and I&#x27;m talking here about booting useful unikernel based applications as opposed to theoretical unikernel OS boot times which can be milliseconds), and also containers are better because they don&#x27;t need nested hardware virtualization switched on in the CPU - that&#x27;s important obviously for cloud computing where nested virtualization has now arrived but is not widespread.<p>And good enough is all that is needed.<p>It&#x27;s hard for me to imagine a time when unikernels gain more acceptance than they already have, which is basically little more than none, and the staunch backing of operating systems researchers and a few true believers who really hang on to the theoretical benefits.