Canonical' snappy Ubuntu Core, the new rendition of its Linux distribution designed for containerized applications in the cloud, is now availble  on Google Compute Engine.

The lightweight high-speed Linux, launched last week as an alpha version, can now be used on what Canonical hails as making the "fastest cloud in the industry". Google is following Microsoft, which announced Core would be available on Azure at its launch.

Ubuntu Core was designed to support distributed operations and containerized applications, particularly using Docker - but also working with Google's own Kubernetes. It uses techniques Canonical learnt from working on a mobile version of its Linux OS, which Canonical hopes to get on smartphones.
 

Core Containers on Google
“Ubuntu Core is the leanest and most efficient version of Ubuntu for cloud deployments with a particular focus on Docker and containers," boasted Robbie Williamson, VP of cloud engineering at Canonical. "We’re delighted to bring Ubuntu Core, with snappy packages, to Google Cloud Platform, which is widely recognised for its performance and Google’s emphasis on container technologies.”

As well as being ligher and faster, Ubuntu Core handles updates more crisply or "snappily" by using a transactional system instead of traditional packages.

It is available now as alpha code and will be delivered as a stable release in April 2015, after which it will be developed in parallel with the existing Ubuntu - based on Debian pacakges - and reach a long term support (LTS) version in 2016.

"Core is probably the most dramatic step we have taken in a long while," Canonical's lead product developer Mark Shuttleworth told Datacenter Dynamics in an interview. "It's a new flavour of Ubuntu that does things differently from how they've been donein the last 20 years."