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Podman v6.0.0

blog.podman.io

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Re: Podman v6.0.0

#121
post #73
post #4

No idea why Docker is still so much more popular than Podman. Podman is obviously the better implementation. The new network stuff is a welcome improvement.

I’d wager it’s mainly just that deployment is mildly more annoying and requires more disparate steps. Especially if you want to go rootless (and you should). For someone that isn’t “Linux first” (like a baby developer learning to containerize their apps), the idea of dealing with systemd unit files or kublet configs, and having to created dedicated local service accounts (and remembering to enable linger) is somewhat…

Its not only intimidating, its clunky and error-prone. That's the answer to OP's question, this podman thing does not have good UX story.

Re: Podman v6.0.0

#122
post #96
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we talking windows here? On Linux and Mac I believe you can install Podman via a package manager like anything else.

Linux. It’s not the installation of podman that can be fiddly. It’s the setting up systemd unit files and local user accounts for rootless / daemonless deployment of containerized apps that can be a headache. It’s not hard. It’s just fiddly.

It might not be the popular way here in HN but nowadays I just ask llm to create required configuration files and everything is so easy. Of course you need to review them but tbh no more headaches at least with config files.

Re: Podman v6.0.0

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked Orbstack better than colima which was better than Docker Desktop. Then I found https://smolmachines.com's smolvm microvms.

been using orbstack but this smol stuff is interesting is this firecracker or total rewrite

Can smolmachines run devcontainers? K3d?

Re: Podman v6.0.0

#124
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a stronger brand name. Also on macOS I found Docker Desktop to be more straightforward. Also lately it has been very error prone. Randomly failing at mounting files, or cleaning up networking rules, or suddenly becoming bog slow so I have to restart the VM. Podman on macOS feels miles less refined. Orbstack is a way better choice. I only use podman on Linux and there it is blazing fast. Even so, most features…

I like OrbStack for macOS, much faster.

Now that Apple has containerization api’s probably the gap closed but when I ran benchmarks a couple years ago Orbstack would on average perform the same build at 4x faster wall clock time as docker desktop

Re: Podman v6.0.0

#125

Top of my list as to why I prefer podman... no "container root" / "docker group" = "host root" shenanigans podman doesn't spew garbage and punch holes in my firewall (iptables) (edit: formatting)

> podman doesn't spew garbage and punch holes in my firewall (iptables) The way Docker silently rewrites iptables rules is just insane. It boggles my mind that someone thought that it would be a good idea, and that it survived a peer review.

It was a major contributor to why I didn't learn more about containers earlier on.

Re: Podman v6.0.0

#126
post #6

Anyone have experience switching from Docker to Podman? I have a lot of compose files in my homelab/automation setup and those are what I’m most concerned about.

[deleted]

Re: Podman v6.0.0

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

author of smol machines here, it has no relation to firecracker. It runs ontop of the libkrun vmm forked with optimizations, which is the underlying lib powering podman as well. open source, will contribute upstream when possible: https://github.com/smol-machines/libkrun

Upthread the implication seems to be that smolmachines would be in some way a replacement for orbstack to run docker containers But it seems more like a completely different way to run isolated workloads?

smol machines is a virtual machine, akin to firecracker but designed to run locally as well

It also has container-inages support built-in with crun so you can create a VM with a container running by default.

You can also just... run docker inside of it.

Re: Podman v6.0.0

#128
post #73
post #4

No idea why Docker is still so much more popular than Podman. Podman is obviously the better implementation. The new network stuff is a welcome improvement.

I’d wager it’s mainly just that deployment is mildly more annoying and requires more disparate steps. Especially if you want to go rootless (and you should). For someone that isn’t “Linux first” (like a baby developer learning to containerize their apps), the idea of dealing with systemd unit files or kublet configs, and having to created dedicated local service accounts (and remembering to enable linger) is somewhat…

It's not just mildly annoying, it completely ruins a great thing.

Docker Compose is to stacks what Dockerfiles are to a single application. Podmans solution is to not commit to compose, but instead to create a bespoke mechanism involving a bunch of tiny files, all of which is insanely system (linux) specific, and therefore completely non-portable.

I genuinely don't understand how someone can see the value of Docker, but then do things so completely "not-docker" when it comes to deployment/stacks/orchestration.

Re: Podman v6.0.0

#129
post #57
post #6

Anyone have experience switching from Docker to Podman? I have a lot of compose files in my homelab/automation setup and those are what I’m most concerned about.

We moved from docker to podman about 15 months ago, and I'm never going back. I (personally) love the quadlet (read: systemd) integration, that makes it so much easier to monitor a set of running services, be they regular systemd services or containers. Running rootless is as straightforward as it gets and on top of it, podman is blazingly fast. I, personally, don't miss docker compose all that much, but I understand…

The one big reason I dread giving up compose files is that they're a great way to have system agnostic documentation on how to setup a new stack. That means every developer can just start the thing locally, and it's pretty much the same as on the server (and everyone elses laptop).

Podman doesn't officially support any thing platform agnostic. How do you (or anyone) deal with this for a project in active development?

Re: Podman v6.0.0

#130
post #4

No idea why Docker is still so much more popular than Podman. Podman is obviously the better implementation. The new network stuff is a welcome improvement.

Default stickiness, tbh.

A few years ago, I started moving towards Podman when it got to that "good enough" point on both Linux and macOS and when Docker started to remind people about Docker Desktop that it needed a license for commercial use.

Even then, it took around a year or so to transition.

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