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How useful is ARM Linux virtualisation nowadays? If you use Docker then are the ARM variations as mature as alpine based Dockers containers? Can you really depl

How useful is ARM Linux virtualisation nowadays? If you use Docker then are the ARM variations as mature as alpine based Dockers containers? Can you really deploy to x86 with just ARM Docker testing? If not then what utility do you gain here?

icedchai 6y ago
I’d say it depends on your app. For something in Java, Python, Ruby, JS, PHP... probably. For something compiled natively, I’d be more concerned.
mcspiff 6y ago
You could just deploy to ARM too: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/ https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/
- sys_64738 6y ago
  Wishful thinking for most businesses.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> Can you really deploy to x86 with just ARM Docker testing? Not if you like paying your bills and sleeping.
- icedchai 6y ago
  This is a big exaggeration. Practically speaking, for most web development this just won’t matter. Many folks already develop on Mac and deploy on Linux.
  - sheeshkebab 6y ago
    It’s more like - many mobile developers develop on x86 but deploy to ARM. Although if you’ve ever done it and had to deal with a a complex piece of software that had native code, you’d know how painful it gets sometime.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      It's likely in a couple years this will be solved, but out the gate it's going to be painful because there is no tooling to go from ARM to x86. One thing I've heard suggested is that this will cause an uptick in Linux ARM and ARM server VM sales. It'll be curious to see how this plays out.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > for most web development this just won’t matter My comment wasn't about most web development, it was specific to using Docker images between platforms. I getting paid to do this, I don't want to screw with guessing games about whether a particular bug is platform specific or not. I already do this to a much smaller extent with Mac vs Linux development. There are a fair number of web development jobs I would be willing to risk jumping architectures on, for example right now we do react development which leans almost entirely on node.js and I'm cautiously optimistic that'll be a fairly transparent hop since it runs entirely on JS.
    - icedchai 6y ago
      Yeah, my comment was that many, many (not all) images for most development use cases will be fine. With the popularity of the Raspberry Pi and other ARM SBCs there are tons of ARM images. If you don't believe me, look on hub.docker.com. Many, many base images are already supported.
      - ogre_codes 6y ago
        Yeah, I'm kind of coming around to this actually. Support for ARM is better than I thought and I suspect with Apple going this way, Linux ARM and Docker portability between ARM & x86 is going to get a huge shot in the arm (pun intended). I'm less skeptical than I was, particularly if you wait 18 months before pulling the trigger.
samgranieri 6y ago
I run a raspberry-pi based kubernetes cluster at home, and being able to run arm32 or aarch64 docker images is important. One thing that works well is an experimental feature called Docker buildx, which allows you to build for several architectures simultaneously and upload the image to your docker repository: then when a client requests a docker image, the repository will send them one that matches their architecture.
apple4ever 6y ago
It's pretty close but not 100%. There will be differences. Maybe enough to matter. Maybe not.

icedchai 6y ago

I’d say it depends on your app. For something in Java, Python, Ruby, JS, PHP... probably. For something compiled natively, I’d be more concerned.

mcspiff 6y ago

You could just deploy to ARM too: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/ https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/

sys_64738 6y ago
Wishful thinking for most businesses.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> Can you really deploy to x86 with just ARM Docker testing? Not if you like paying your bills and sleeping.

icedchai 6y ago
This is a big exaggeration. Practically speaking, for most web development this just won’t matter. Many folks already develop on Mac and deploy on Linux.
- sheeshkebab 6y ago
  It’s more like - many mobile developers develop on x86 but deploy to ARM. Although if you’ve ever done it and had to deal with a a complex piece of software that had native code, you’d know how painful it gets sometime.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    It's likely in a couple years this will be solved, but out the gate it's going to be painful because there is no tooling to go from ARM to x86. One thing I've heard suggested is that this will cause an uptick in Linux ARM and ARM server VM sales. It'll be curious to see how this plays out.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > for most web development this just won’t matter My comment wasn't about most web development, it was specific to using Docker images between platforms. I getting paid to do this, I don't want to screw with guessing games about whether a particular bug is platform specific or not. I already do this to a much smaller extent with Mac vs Linux development. There are a fair number of web development jobs I would be willing to risk jumping architectures on, for example right now we do react development which leans almost entirely on node.js and I'm cautiously optimistic that'll be a fairly transparent hop since it runs entirely on JS.
  - icedchai 6y ago
    Yeah, my comment was that many, many (not all) images for most development use cases will be fine. With the popularity of the Raspberry Pi and other ARM SBCs there are tons of ARM images. If you don't believe me, look on hub.docker.com. Many, many base images are already supported.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      Yeah, I'm kind of coming around to this actually. Support for ARM is better than I thought and I suspect with Apple going this way, Linux ARM and Docker portability between ARM & x86 is going to get a huge shot in the arm (pun intended). I'm less skeptical than I was, particularly if you wait 18 months before pulling the trigger.

samgranieri 6y ago

I run a raspberry-pi based kubernetes cluster at home, and being able to run arm32 or aarch64 docker images is important. One thing that works well is an experimental feature called Docker buildx, which allows you to build for several architectures simultaneously and upload the image to your docker repository: then when a client requests a docker image, the repository will send them one that matches their architecture.

apple4ever 6y ago

It's pretty close but not 100%. There will be differences. Maybe enough to matter. Maybe not.