[HN Gopher] Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Des...
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Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop
Author : twelvenmonkeys
Score : 210 points
Date : 2022-11-09 19:55 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (podman-desktop.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (podman-desktop.io)
| Yuioup wrote:
| Can this be installed side-by-side with Docker Desktop (on
| Windows)?
| slimsag wrote:
| yes; actually it's pretty cool because it shows you docker
| containers running on your system too and lets you manage those
| if you have any.
| xwowsersx wrote:
| That's what Docker Desktop does and this is an alternative to
| Docker Desktop... Are you saying Docker Desktop on Windows
| doesn't have those features?
| xeromal wrote:
| I believe they're saying is that podman can be run
| concurrently. They're just elaborating.
| xwowsersx wrote:
| Gotcha, I thought I may have misunderstood. The wording
| made it sound "also, it's pretty cool because Podman (as
| opposed to DD) can do x, y, z" which didn't make sense to
| me. I was thinking "obviously Podman can do that if it's
| meant as an alternative to DD"
| phinnaeus wrote:
| Just want to make sure: what they meant was Podman
| Desktop will show you both podman-based containers AND DD
| based containers.
| yoro46 wrote:
| Convenient timing! I installed podman last night and was playing
| with it. So far it feels just like Docker. Too bad it'll take
| much more time before I get to seriously recommend this at
| work... But that doesn't mean I can't use it for my personal
| projects :)
| irsagent wrote:
| It's nice to know that there is an alternative to Docker.
| [deleted]
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| 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 github the other day that may work (can't
| remember the name, something about "box"), but it wasn't
| available for Macos.
| rb12345 wrote:
| LXC/LXD are probably the closest to that on Linux, although I'm
| not sure about nesting containers.
| MikeKusold wrote:
| Proxmox allows you to launch LXC containers via a UI. I use it
| at home and I'm able to run Docker in both a privileged LXC and
| an unprivileged LXC.
| raro11 wrote:
| Docker Desktop for Mac released an experimental file sharing
| implementation back in March[0]. It made working with Docker
| bearable.
|
| Does anyone know how well Podman performs on Mac? Especially file
| sharing.
|
| Edit: A quick Google led me back to this HackerNews comment[1].
| Looks like Docker for Mac is faster.
|
| [0] https://www.docker.com/blog/speed-boost-achievement-
| unlocked...
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32307595
| syntaxing wrote:
| Echoing others, is there a benefit running this over Docker? I
| recently setup portainer and Docker on my homelab and had
| everything running in about 30 min. Is there a benefit to migrate
| to podman?
| jalons wrote:
| Licensing.
| mindwok wrote:
| The main benefits touted are that Podman can run rootless
| containers and it doesn't need a daemon compared to Docker.
| However those comparisons are less relevant now than they were
| a while ago because Docker can now run rootless containers and
| Podman has developed a heap of systemd hooks that effectively
| use that as the daemon. It does have some good features though,
| like being compatible with Kubernetes manifests.
|
| If you're happy with portainer and Docker I wouldn't bother
| migrating.
| 404mm wrote:
| Sort of off-topic. I noticed they publish Universal, intel and
| arm builds for MacOS. I'm struggling to understand why would they
| build all three? Why not do either universal or split arch?
| florentbenoit wrote:
| It's just to download smaller files.
|
| For example if you're using homebrew it will download the right
| specific file.
|
| And universal is there so that people don't bother to know
| which arch is their computer.
| COGlory wrote:
| Nice, it's on Flatpak as well.
| magicpointer wrote:
| 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 just got Docker Desktop licenses.
| blibble wrote:
| > For personal use I found it great and lighter than Docker
| Desktop.
|
| I don't know what Docker Desktop is doing but on a top end i9
| with 128gb of ram it still takes 60 seconds to start
|
| and the UI takes forever to do anything
|
| it makes Teams look responsive
| PaulWaldman wrote:
| Are you on Windows? I believe it is using Hyper-V and running
| containers in a VM. The loading time is probably how long it
| takes to start the VM.
| mfer wrote:
| I user Rancher Desktop on an i9 with 32gb of RAM. Starts in
| less than a minute. I also have Teams and slack. Sometimes I
| have over 200 browser tabs open (yes, I have a problem). The
| UI is responsive pretty quickly.
|
| A lot of delays has to do with starting VMs. You need this
| for Linux on Mac/Windows.
|
| Disclaimer: I started Rancher Desktop. I might be biased.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| I suppose Docker Compose won't work with those alternatives?
| jchw wrote:
| Podman works with Docker Compose enough to run stuff I've had
| to deal with at work and home. I prefer to use the podman-
| compose script usually, since it does offer some small
| advantages when using Podman. That said, even with the
| podman-compose script, I ran into an issue where some syntax
| somewhere needed to be adjusted for Podman; I can't remember
| exactly what and I don't have access to the repository to
| check, but it was a security-related flag, and it was fixed
| in master at some point, I believe.
|
| Getting Podman to run CUDA/Nvidia workloads was a bit more
| challenging, but that can also be done.
| mfer wrote:
| For Rancher Desktop, Docker Compose works with Rancher
| Desktop when you choose dockerd (moby). If you choose to use
| straight containerd (with nerdctl as a CLI) than compose
| isn't going to work.
| depereo wrote:
| Compose works (with caveats, sometimes significant ones) with
| podman.
|
| Rancher desktop works seamlessly with docker-compose. No
| issues at all.
| Macha wrote:
| Docker Compose works fine with Rancher Desktop. You can use
| it with Podman on Linux too, you just need to enable the
| socket since normally Podman does without - I'd imagine
| there's some way to enable this on Podman desktop too.
| alphalima wrote:
| I had similar issues with a different VPN/Proxy at an earlier
| role. I solved with https://github.com/sakai135/wsl-vpnkit and
| trusting the root certificate of the proxy on the rancher
| desktop WSL2 vm (Assuming you're on Windows as I was).
|
| Docker desktop pays for itself by solving these issues though
| IMO (I wasn't able to get a licence at the old role however)
| candiddevmike wrote:
| 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.
| parhamn wrote:
| It is so lame this is okay. The hypocrisy of highbrow HN around
| licensing/ethics/attribution/etc vs its support of blatant
| ripoffs like this is frustrating.
| KyeRussell wrote:
| That is absurd. These "ripoffs" are entirely enabled by the
| licensing/donating of the technologies that underpin Docker,
| let alone Docker Desktop.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| 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?
| Demonsult wrote:
| Besides the licensing issues, I found it bloated and flaky. For
| me, the friendly GUI just added pain. I use docker in Hyper-V
| as my home media server instead. WSL2 also works.
| AnonCoward42 wrote:
| 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.
| petre wrote:
| And pods and not needing a daemon to run them among other
| things. Docker is still easier precisely because it has a
| daemon that automatically just starts up your countainers
| thay you've configured to run at startup, without the need to
| create systemd unit files.
| nicholasjarnold wrote:
| > Another one is also that Docker is really not pleasant to
| install on Linux.
|
| I'm curious on which Linux did you encounter issues while
| installing Docker? I cannot comment on the (to me somewhat
| pointless) Docker Desktop GUI installation on Linux, but I
| can confidently report that installing and using docker
| engine on Ubuntu, at least, is quite trivial and clearly
| documented[0] on the website.
|
| [0] https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/debian/
| AnonCoward42 wrote:
| First of: It has been some time since I last installed
| Docker. It actually was on Ubuntu and a properly current
| version was not in the distro repositories, so I had to add
| a new repository and it installed plenty of extra
| dependencies. It's not hard, but also not really pleasant.
|
| It also seems like Docker is now able to run rootless as
| well, so my nitpicks are actually more minor than I
| originally thought. It's still not daemonless, but it would
| work for my use case still I think.
| florentbenoit wrote:
| They can run side by side and Podman Desktop is also able to
| show you all Docker containers, images, etc.
| hbn wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the main reason there's a push to move from
| Docker Desktop now is because earlier this year they started
| charging larger businesses/teams to use it.
|
| So if you're just using it for yourself you probably don't need
| to bother
|
| https://www.docker.com/blog/updating-product-subscriptions/
| matai_kolila wrote:
| Oh I'm aware of that, my point is that it isn't the smooth
| transition folks seem to make it out to be (unless, of
| course, I'm a dum dum which is possible).
| LooerCell wrote:
| 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
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Best part: it's QEMU so you can choose your CPU architecture
| and run x86_64 containers on ARM Macs
| shad42 wrote:
| Replaced Desktop with `colima` as well few months ago. I've
| been using it daily since then. I did not have any issue,
| sometimes I just delete / start a instance to upgrade the
| docker version, it only takes few minutes.
|
| I like the fact that I decide when I upgrade, not Docker
| Desktop nagging me every week.
| cybervegan wrote:
| 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. :-(
| florentbenoit wrote:
| What file format would you expect?
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| I'm using (as individual, so for free) Docker Desktop on my M1
| Apple silicon. It works great. Could someone tell me the benefits
| of switching to Podman? I like that Podman is open source,
| though.
|
| Edit: I'm using it for free.
| pgoggijr wrote:
| Biggest benefit is that it's open source and free - for
| business use Docker Desktop is a paid service
| moondev wrote:
| I have been experimenting with the arm64 windows dev kit, neither
| docker desktop, podman desktop or rancher desktop had arm64
| builds. Installing the amd64 builds did not work either.
|
| I was surprised to find out wsl2 now supports systemd
|
| https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/systemd-support-i...
|
| I was able to install docker normally inside wsl2 and it worked
| perfectly. No "desktop" app needed. This will be a game changer
| when it hits GA
| injinj wrote:
| Can I use this to manage sudo containers? It's slightly amusing
| to see the desktop creates a podman daemon, so maybe you could
| create a sudo podman daemon for use with the desktop somehow?
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(page generated 2022-11-09 23:00 UTC)