Live data from Hacker News

Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop

podman-desktop.io

91–100 of 202 posts

Re: Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop

#91

Pity it's only available as a tarball or .flatpak. I've never got flatpak to work before, and it doesn't work this time either. :-(

And on Homebrew, and packaged for Arch and Gentoo, and other comments seem to indicate that there are outdated .debs for Ubuntu/Debian, and not-outdated ones if you are okay with a third-party repo (which isn't that big of a stretch…?)

That seems pretty well packaged, honestly.

Re: Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop

#92

Recently I started using colima[0], a drop in replacement for Docker Desktop on Mac, and have seen an increase in performance and battery life. You can use all the normal docker and docker compose commands. It does not have a GUI but you can use the Docker extension on VS Code to have an overview of running containers. [0] https://github.com/abiosoft/colima

Looking to convert, but I still can't understand how this is more performant. Docker Desktop has lots of engineering going into performance crossing the host/VM barrier. IIRC lima just pipes over SSH. How could that be faster?

Re: Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop

#93
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please help me understanding: Why is `brew install docker` not sufficient, why do you also need Colima or Docker Desktop? Is it so that there is a docker _daemon_ installed which `docker` doesn't ship with?

OSX dose not support running docker containers (or vis versa depending on your point of view). Instead you need a VM running Linux. Docker Desktop / Colima runs this VM for you.

[deleted]

Re: Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop

#94
post #38

Talking about containers: is there an easy way to run “system” containers? This is, containers that run systemd and everything else you would expect to be running on a normal Linux OS. I rely heavily on VMs to simulate cloud environments, but I would love to use lightweight containers instead. Also, these “system” containers should be able to run containers inside them as well (docker in docker?). I saw something on…

kind (kubernetes inside docker) does this by building a specialized container that includes and uses systemd as the entrypoint:

https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kind/blob/main/images/bas...

You could run this as a standalone container

      docker run --rm -d --name my-node --volume=/lib/modules:/lib/modules:ro --volume=/var --volume=/kind  --privileged docker.io/kindest/node:v1.25.3
then exec in and use it like a vm. it comes with containerd installed and running but you could also install docker

      docker exec -it my-node bash

Re: Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop

#95
post #90

The problem with podman at the moment (IMO) is version drift. RHEL/Fedora and friends get the latest and greatest (4), Debian/Ubuntu are stuck on 3.x. This isn't a problem with Docker, which has tight control over what is deployed. This means how you use Podman directly or indirectly via tools and plugins may change.

> This isn't a problem with Docker, which has tight control over what is deployed. That contention is heavily dependent upon how Docker was installed. Docker desktop, yes. Command line Docker on Linux? That used to be much more complicated and depended on if you had an OS vendor provided version or had a Docker provided repo install. RHEL’s repo version always seemed particularly out of date to me.

Yeah, fortunately it's two lines of shell to add Docker's community repo to CentOS/Rocky Linux.

Re: Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop

#96

There's also Rancher Desktop in the same space, which includes k3s as a local K8s solution. For personal use I found it great and lighter than Docker Desktop. At work, unfortunately all options but Docker Desktop have issues with either 1) Our Cisco AnyConnect VPN, or 2) Our authenticated http proxy. Couldn't find anything else providing a container runtime + a local k8s on MacOS that works in this environment. So we…

I suppose Docker Compose won‘t work with those alternatives?

I ran into this issue[0] when trying to use docker-compose locally, connecting to a Podman VM.

[0]: https://github.com/docker/compose/issues/9448

Re: Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop

#97

Am I just a dum dum for not getting this to drop-in replace Docker Desktop for my relatively simple projects? Has anyone else experienced the problematic practicalities of switching, or should I just spend a bit more time with it?

For me the main reason to use Podman over Docker is rootless containers. Another one is also that Docker is really not pleasant to install on Linux.

It's not pleasant? I don't know what Docker Desktop is (or what the point is) but Docker Server is two lines of shell on most distros (add repo and install).

I use CentOS, Ubuntu and Arch and have to regularly use third-party repos, PPAs or the AUR - this isn't a particularly uncommon thing to do when installing software. And it beats running a shell script, which is how k8s stuff works most of the time :P

Re: Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop

#98
post #68
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Docker Desktop" uses a VM for container execution on all supported OSes - Windows, macOS and Linux - default installs are not running "docker" natively at your local CLI if you are using "Docker Desktop" to run docker, even on Linux. > https://www.docker.com/blog/the-magic-behind-the-scenes-of-d... > https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/linux-install/ > https://docs.docker.com/desktop/faqs/linuxfaqs/#what-is-the-…

On windows, docker desktop can use Hyper-V, but it also supports WSL2 as a backend.

The DD WSL2 backend is also creating a VM in Hyper-V. Actually, it's creating two VMs (docker-desktop and docker-desktop-data). It's also running a proxy in your WSL2 VM so you can access the docker server. It's all a bit convoluted TBH.

I actually decided today to stop using DD on my Windows machine and just run docker native inside the WSL2 VM instance instead. Still not sure what solution I'm going for on my Mac.

Re: Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop

#99

There's also Rancher Desktop in the same space, which includes k3s as a local K8s solution. For personal use I found it great and lighter than Docker Desktop. At work, unfortunately all options but Docker Desktop have issues with either 1) Our Cisco AnyConnect VPN, or 2) Our authenticated http proxy. Couldn't find anything else providing a container runtime + a local k8s on MacOS that works in this environment. So we…

You can use wsl-gvproxy(*), which uses our CRC usermode network stack to allow use with VPN. We are working on making this an option for podman machine. Alternatively, or to test, you can use CRC from our crc-org project and run the podman preset. This uses a dedicated VM using native hypervisors and the gvproxy setup.

I am the teamlead of CRC and work on the Windows enablement of podman machine, with the podman desktop team. Gladly take questions here or by email.

(*) also known as wsl-vpnkit

Re: Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop

#100
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On windows, docker desktop can use Hyper-V, but it also supports WSL2 as a backend.

The DD WSL2 backend is also creating a VM in Hyper-V. Actually, it's creating two VMs (docker-desktop and docker-desktop-data). It's also running a proxy in your WSL2 VM so you can access the docker server. It's all a bit convoluted TBH. I actually decided today to stop using DD on my Windows machine and just run docker native inside the WSL2 VM instance instead. Still not sure what solution I'm going for on my Mac.

Well, yes, but it creates those when you log in. The proxy fixes some corp firewall issues (see other comments here). Start up is faster overall for me versus the normal backend.
Post reply on HN