Can macOS be run as a container machine on macOS?
Yes
macOS Container Machines
131–140 of 457 posts
Re: macOS Container Machines
#132I saw the video on this this is distrobox basically for Mac. It’s very cool. Seamless with your local files and the container. I’m very keen to try it.
Re: macOS Container Machines
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
It mostly removes the big shared background VM and replaces it with smaller, more isolated Apple-native VMs. I did an experiment migrating my Podman workload to Apple's container @ https://gist.github.com/jmonster/39e14585e107dbf990a90966c0f... TL;DR reduces ram/storage usage; minimizes it's existence
How does that work, realistically? > Memory defaults to half of host memory That's the most expensive part of the whole transaction, b/c AFAIK, RAM is then dedicated to the VM. It can be swapped out, I suppose, but that's not great.
CGamesPlay said above its balloon memory so it won’t use all that memory by default, but it can’t release balloon memory yet.
Re: macOS Container Machines
#134Would be cool if you can redirect USB devices to the VM.
I've successfully tinkered with USB/IP with Apple containers, but it does require loading a custom kernel (which they make pretty easy, thankfully). On the host side, macOS also doesn't make it easy to unload a driver that attaches automatically.
Re: macOS Container Machines
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would be the advantages over a VM infrastructure Apple needs anyway and that has a much simpler, more stable “ABI” compared to the Linux kernel?
Potentially faster application execution along much lower memory requirements. In the case of docker, even a possibility of shared library loading further reducing runtime costs (For example, containers based on the same base image could load glibc into memory only once). There's also simply the possibility of using linux software directly in macos without doing OS dependent changes to the software.
Yeah. But in exchange it’s a lot of work to keep up with. For GUI stuff you’re now having to have some sort of Wayland layer/driver.
Running VMs is really really easy and low maintenance demand on Apple. And it’s guaranteed compatibility.
Wasn’t compatibility what really sunk WSL1?
Re: macOS Container Machines
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what is the revenue stream tied to that ci/cd pipeline they aren’t capturing today? Apple would sell less hardware in order to…? There aren’t any app developers avoiding the Apple ecosystem because there aren’t Darwin containers. They don’t sell server hardware and by all accounts have no intention of ever reentering that space. So they’d spend a bunch of developer cycles to reduce their own revenue stream with n…
Correct me if I'm wrong, but by the same logic, you could also say this whole containerization framework is of no use either. If they're investing resources into it regardless, they might at least try making something that Docker for macOS and co. haven't solved the same exact way already. Something that, due to their almost unhealthy obsession with "system integrity", only they can realistically make. Like native co…
Containers are REALLY REALLY popular. This is a a great value add for developers on Mac who need to deal with Linux containers.
Which is a ton of ‘em.
Re: macOS Container Machines
#137Every time I see Apple flaunting Linux containers I can hardly consider it as anything but admitting defeat. It could easily be Darwin, if they still had the capacity.
Just change 30 years of internet history
For what it's worth, the first web server was a NeXTcube, and NeXTSTEP was the foundation of macOS.
Re: macOS Container Machines
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
I'll defend, not cringe for everyone. Daily driver is a 6yo, 32Mb mbp and it might not scream like an M5 or have the miraculous power draw of an M5, it gets my job done. One nice thing is x86 containers run natively: I run most of my $work landscape which is 40 or 50 k8s pods on top of Kind, which is itself a plain container. That mirrors my prod. That plus slack, zoom, ff with scores of tabs, etc. all while building…
That is a far more useful reply than the GP comment. If they had stated something similar I don’t think they would’ve been downvoted.
Re: macOS Container Machines
#139Re: macOS Container Machines
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be wonderful if this ran on older versions of macOS, but according to the README they only support 26.
you do not understand... Not run on, run IN :) I'm saying the older version of macos could build/run INSIDE the container just like on a ubuntu 24.04 system you can do: FROM ubuntu:16.04 or docker run ubuntu:16.04 and though I haven't tried it, I believe docker can do arm in x86 using an emulator (like rosetta)
You can already run older versions of macOS inside a VM on macOS.
So it seems like in theory that should be doable if someone just made the container images right?