A lot of the issues in this article seem to stem from running Docker on old kernel versions.
> We are using Debian stable with backports, in production. We started running on Debian Jessie 3.16.7-ckt20-1 (released November 2015). This one suffers from a major critical bug that crashes hosts erratically (every few hours in average).
If you're stuck on an older system that's poorly supported by Docker then it may be a bad choice for you.
To be fair, I have not had the honor to be a docker customer. But regarding the kernel thing, I have limited IFY. Let's say if you goal is to keep yourself up-to-date with kernel tree, probably you have to compile the kernel DIY. The hardware dependencies and customized kernel config is not that handy. Then if you pick a distro, probably, not sure it is a problem, things like initd sneak into systemd/sysctl brought the element of surprises occasionally. While, to move or not to move, both are forwarding and backwarding.
Which actually stable distribution includes a sufficiently new kernel? For important stuff, a lot of us stick to Debian stable, Ubuntu LTS releases, CentOS/RHEL, etc.
CoreOS only. They're on 4.8 right now and they update the kernel whenever is necessary to keep up with Docker needs. That's the only safe bet on the long term. (as stated in the Roadmap in the article).
Read: Even if Ubuntu 16-LTS and Centos/RHEL 7 may be up to date enough now (not sure), they won't keep up with the latest minor kernel updates and that will become a problem in 6 months when docker 1.1X will require THE newest kernel.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. RedHat is pretty invested in Docker right now via OpenShift so they have a lot incentive to backport required kernel fixes to Centos/RHEL 7 but at some point they'll likely have to drop support for the latest and greatest Docker release.
What makes you think they aren't just stabilizing/standardizing a single version of docker and backporting fixes?
After all, about 1/2 the gripes stemmed from the fact they docker itself is basically the engineering branch minus any serious regression/etc testing. Of course things are going to break from release to release, that is why test departments exist.
> We are using Debian stable with backports, in production. We started running on Debian Jessie 3.16.7-ckt20-1 (released November 2015). This one suffers from a major critical bug that crashes hosts erratically (every few hours in average).
If you're stuck on an older system that's poorly supported by Docker then it may be a bad choice for you.