What are differences between Windows Containers and Linux Containers?

A Docker server environment has its own OS (Operating System) like any other computing environments. Currently there are two main OS types supported by the Docker server: Linux and Windows.

In order to run a Docker container on a Docker server, the container's OS type must match the Docker server OS type.

To see the Docker server's OS type information, you can use the "docker info" command.

C:\fyicenter>docker info

Server:
 Containers: 4
  ...
 Images: 2
 Server Version: 19.03.13
 Storage Driver: overlay2
 Logging Driver: json-file
 Runtimes: runc
 containerd version: 8fba4e9a7d01810a393d5d25a3621dc101981175
 Kernel Version: 5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2
 Operating System: Docker Desktop
 
 OSType: linux

 Architecture: x86_64
 ...

To see the Docker image's OS type information, you can use the "docker image inspect" command.

C:\fyicenter> docker image inspect docker/getting-started
[
    {
        "Id": "sha256:...",
            "ContainerConfig": {
            "Hostname": "",
            "Domainname": "",
            "User": "",
             ...
        },
        "DockerVersion": "",
        "Author": "",
        "Config": {...},
        "Architecture": "amd64",

        "Os": "linux",
        ...
    }
]

⇒ Switch OS Type on Docker Desktop for Windows

⇐ Run "getting-started" Docker on Windows 10

⇑ Install Docker Desktop on Windows

⇑⇑ Docker Container Platform - Tutorials