Run update.sh

irssi/README.md

@@ -85,6 +85,22 @@ $ docker run -it --name my-running-irssi -e TERM -u $(id -u):$(id -g) \
 
 You omit `/etc/localtime` on Mac OS X because `boot2docker` doesn't use this file.
 
+# Image Variants
+
+The `irssi` images come in many flavors, each designed for a specific use case.
+
+## `irssi:<version>`
+
+This is the defacto image. If you are unsure about what your needs are, you probably want to use this one. It is designed to be used both as a throw away container (mount your source code and start the container to start your app), as well as the base to build other images off of.
+
+## `irssi:<version>-alpine`
+
+This image is based on the popular [Alpine Linux project](https://alpinelinux.org), available in [the `alpine` official image](https://hub.docker.com/_/alpine). Alpine Linux is much smaller than most distribution base images (~5MB), and thus leads to much slimmer images in general.
+
+This variant is useful when final image size being as small as possible is your primary concern. The main caveat to note is that it does use [musl libc](https://musl.libc.org) instead of [glibc and friends](https://www.etalabs.net/compare_libcs.html), so software will often run into issues depending on the depth of their libc requirements/assumptions. See [this Hacker News comment thread](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10782897) for more discussion of the issues that might arise and some pro/con comparisons of using Alpine-based images.
+
+To minimize image size, it's uncommon for additional related tools (such as `git` or `bash`) to be included in Alpine-based images. Using this image as a base, add the things you need in your own Dockerfile (see the [`alpine` image description](https://hub.docker.com/_/alpine/) for examples of how to install packages if you are unfamiliar).
+
 # License
 
 View [license information](https://github.com/irssi/irssi/blob/master/COPYING) for the software contained in this image.