Docker for Mac Without Docker Desktop • Hacker News Board

Re: Docker for Mac Without Docker Desktop

#121

Post by c7DJTLrn » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 10:16 PM UTC

The Docker/virtualisation stuff on macOS really needs fixing up. The x86 to ARM transition has made things worse but it was pitiful even before. Virtualization.framework doesn't seem to live up to the hype. Docker has an experimental mode for it - if you try enabling it you'll quickly realise why it's experimental. Your computer will go into meltdown and performance will feel a hundred times slower. M1 MacBooks are no good for Docker/VMs unless you have a Parallels license.

Apple needs to do what Microsoft did surrounding Linux on Windows. Allocate some engineers for a few years to make life easier for developers on their platform.

Re: Docker for Mac Without Docker Desktop

#122

Post by navels » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

PolCPP wrote: post #76

therealmarv wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try UTM https://mac.getutm.app/ Run x86 Linux of your choice there, install Docker inside there. Run it there.

You'll get the same issues, since utm uses qemu. Tried it a few days ago with x64 linux only to have the os crash while copying stuff over smb

FWIW I switched from Docker Desktop to UTM+Ubuntu+Docker a few months ago and it has been great.

Re: Docker for Mac Without Docker Desktop

#123

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 10:19 PM UTC

Toine wrote: post #108

minerva23 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why the heck doesn't the macOS kernel support native containerization? Because Apple has no plans of growing their server OS marketshare. I know there are benefits of using namespaces (containers) in the desktop market, but they don't sell iMacs/MBPs. Exterior design and heavy marketing is their sales strategy.

"Exterior design and heavy marketing is their sales strategy" this is old, boring and not even true.

[deleted]

Re: Docker for Mac Without Docker Desktop

#124

Post by musicale » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 10:24 PM UTC

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #121

The Docker/virtualisation stuff on macOS really needs fixing up. The x86 to ARM transition has made things worse but it was pitiful even before. Virtualization.framework doesn't seem to live up to the hype. Docker has an experimental mode for it - if you try enabling it you'll quickly realise why it's experimental. Your computer will go into meltdown and performance will feel a hundred times slower. M1 MacBooks are n…

> Apple needs to do what Microsoft did surrounding Linux on Windows. Allocate some engineers for a few years to make life easier for developers on their platform.

Apple will most likely continue to do what it always does: make billions of dollars while largely ignoring Linux.

iOS and macOS developers will continue to use Xcode the way they always have. (And perhaps Swift Playgrounds on iOS.)

Re: Docker for Mac Without Docker Desktop

#125

Post by musicale » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

riffic wrote: post #37

I know people doing docker dev are generally targeting a Linux of some sort, but why the heck doesn't the macOS kernel support native containerization? Come on Apple. Microsoft can do it. edit: this seems like a new development since my last whine/complaint on this topic: https://macoscontainers.org/

> why the heck doesn't the macOS kernel support native containerization

It doesn't seem like a huge leap from sandboxing to containerization.

They also might consider supporting BSD-style jails.

Re: Docker for Mac Without Docker Desktop

#126

Post by c7DJTLrn » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

musicale wrote: post #124

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #121

The Docker/virtualisation stuff on macOS really needs fixing up. The x86 to ARM transition has made things worse but it was pitiful even before. Virtualization.framework doesn't seem to live up to the hype. Docker has an experimental mode for it - if you try enabling it you'll quickly realise why it's experimental. Your computer will go into meltdown and performance will feel a hundred times slower. M1 MacBooks are n…

> Apple needs to do what Microsoft did surrounding Linux on Windows. Allocate some engineers for a few years to make life easier for developers on their platform. Apple will most likely continue to do what it always does: make billions of dollars while largely ignoring Linux. iOS and macOS developers will continue to use Xcode the way they always have. (And perhaps Swift Playgrounds on iOS.)

Maybe, but that's what we all said about Microsoft ten years ago.

Re: Docker for Mac Without Docker Desktop

#127

Post by freetime2 » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 10:29 PM UTC

rckrd wrote: post #10

One of the past maintainers of minikube here. Minikube, while targeted towards Kubernetes developers, also provides all the features you'd want here. It also takes away most of the pain from virtual machine management w/ native hypervisors. If you're looking for customizability (boot image, docker version, container runtime), minikube is probably your best bet. It even comes with some rudimentary file-sharing and por…

The issue that I had with Minikube is that I couldn’t get it to work with my employer’s VPN enabled. I realize that this is more the fault of my employer’s strict no-split-tunneling configuration than Minikube’s, but sadly that is the reality I live in.

I ended up using lima vm, which has an elegant port forwarding solution to make everything running on the VM appear as if it is running on localhost.

Having made the switch, I also prefer the simplicity and transparency of know exactly how the VM is configured, and being able to make tweaks to the provisioning script if necessary. Minikube on the other hand felt a bit automagical at times.

Re: Docker for Mac Without Docker Desktop

#128

Post by hoofhearthed » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 10:30 PM UTC

Uhm I’m not a sys-admin nor an extreme senior engineer, but you have to admit. The current setup for running docker on macOS, with the current virtualization, is completely broken.

Re: Docker for Mac Without Docker Desktop

#129

Post by freetime2 » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 10:36 PM UTC

hoofhearthed wrote: post #128

Uhm I’m not a sys-admin nor an extreme senior engineer, but you have to admit. The current setup for running docker on macOS, with the current virtualization, is completely broken.

We have been using it for years with few major issues, so I would definitely not call it completely broken. “Suboptimal”, maybe.

But we made the decision that the benefits of containerization outweigh the cost of having to run containers in a VM during development, and have been mostly happy with that decision. We’re certainly not considering going back to the old way of having to manage application runtime dependencies separately across hundreds of different servers.

Re: Docker for Mac Without Docker Desktop

#130

Post by nunez » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 10:37 PM UTC

This is a very heavy alternative. It is also not viable for those with ARM machines, as Virtualbox is x86 only.

Minikube is a popular alternative. Colima is an up-and-coming one that's can run both raw containerd and Docker engine on top of containerd. I prefer Colima since I'd rather not have Kubernetes running full-time (consumes resources).