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Comment by sigjuice | Hacker News Reader

Docker is for running Linux apps. I honestly don't see the appeal of abstracting away the Linux VM via Docker for Mac, especially if it has issues like filesystem performance. I have been running docker inside a Linux VM in VMWare Fusion on my Intel MacBook. Surely it would be possible to just have a plain Linux VM on an M1 Mac and run Docker inside it?

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The big thing Docker solves is repeatability and isolation. If you create a Docker instance on your Mac, you are more or less guaranteed it will work the same in production.

If you were to create a Linux VM to replace Docker, you would need it to also recreate the Docker build tools for that VM so you could recreate that VM on the server. At that point, you’ve more or less come full circle and essentially recreated Docker.

I am not creating a Linux VM to replace Docker.

I have a Linux system (the VM). Docker is installed on that Linux system and I do all docker related work on the Linux system.

Yes, this is really the only way to tolerate Docker on a Mac. Basically it's the same thing WSL does on Windows. Linux in a VM then you run Docker in the VM. Not many people talk about doing it this way though.

Ah, obv I misunderstood your above post.

Makes a ton of sense. It’s been a while since I used Docker, but I’ll have to try it out next time I’m using a container setup. Particularly since HyperKit seems to make running a VM so straight forward.

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