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Comment by andyroid | Hacker News Reader

How about the fact that not all, or even most, dev machines run Linux, which is the only platform podman supports?

I don't use podman, but a quick search shows that you can install podman on Linux, Windows, and MacOS. Are you referring to something else?

https://podman.io/getting-started/installation

If you read the instructions, they basically say that you still need a Linux VM or WSL environment to run Podman in. Which makes it not a complete replacement for Docker desktop, which handles the VM for you. So OP isn't wrong.

Podman 3.3 and up has `podman machine`, which is supposed to do this for you...

Apparently it's already deprecated https://github.com/boot2podman/machine ?

That's an unrelated tool named "podman-machine". "podman machine", as in the subcommand to "podman" proper, is not deprecated.

So that's a couple hours for the first dev to make a list of WSL setup instructions or a VM template, and 5 minutes each for every dev after.

Does Mac have any sort of built-in VM framework like Hyper-V?

I did not know that running basic Linux VMs was something you could do without downloading VMware or Virtual Box - which isn't as easy as just running a few scripts (especially in corporate environments where Brew and other tools might not be so readily available to all employees).

I meant that for windows. I don't have enough experience with mac to give great answers.

> downloading VMware or Virtual Box - which isn't as easy as just running a few scripts (especially in corporate environments where Brew and other tools might not be so readily available to all employees).

Docker Desktop needs the same level of access, because it runs virtual machines. If you could install it on your own, can't you install those on your own? If it was centrally managed, then IT can switch to one of those programs instead.

> Does Mac have any sort of built-in VM framework like Hyper-V?

Yosemite added Hypervisor.framework, I guess?

> Does Mac have any sort of built-in VM framework like Hyper-V?

Two, actually. Hypervisor.framework [0] to build virtualization solutions on top of a lightweight hypervisor, without third-party kernel extensions, and Virtualization.framework, to create virtual machines and run Linux-based operating systems.

[0] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/hypervisor?languag...

[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization?lan...

Thanks for the tip. I will have to take a look. It'd be nice if there were some github repos out there that leveraged this to make experimenting with Linux distros (including Desktop environments) as seamless as it is with VMWare Workstation - where things like high DPI resolution, copy & paste, etc. just work without too much trouble.

> Podman is a tool for running Linux containers. You can do this from a MacOS desktop as long as you have access to a linux box either running inside of a VM on the host, or available via the network. You need to install the remote client and then setup ssh connection information.

Literally the first non-title element in your link. Just because the client is cross-platform doesn't mean the entire solution is turn-key cross-platform.

That's exactly what docker desktop does as well. A Macos or Windows client that runs docker in a Linux VM. There is a really limited concept of container on Windows, but it's far from being great and since not much people use Windows in production to run apps, this is not really usefull.

Well yeah, sure, but Docker for Mac/Windows installs the VM, sets up host-guest file shares, papers over networking and VPN stuff, etc.

I was going to say that installing Podman on macOS/Windows leaves the VM as an exercise to the user, but per another comment, there's podman-machine[1], a new-ish built in to setup a VM. However, it's apparently already deprecated (?) and recommends simply 'Vagrant' as an alternative, so seemingly setting up the VM is back to being a user exercise for Podman?

[1]: https://github.com/boot2podman/machine

The integration (the Linux VM is transparent to the user) is what makes all the difference.

Oh yes, whilst Docker was created to help developers to think operationally, it (ironically) ended up helping Developers to not think about operations at all.

This is currently its big weakness in my opinion.

Most of the problems that devs are facing with docker are not actually docker but this layer that tries to abstract the VM. So in the end, it's quite common that you have fix things in the VM or get rid of it. I don't know if docker on WSL2 makes the matter better, none of the devs in my team using Windows can use it because of the memory usage bug.

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