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Worrying in this thread how few people seem to realize that docker desktop is not a) just another word for ‘docker’ or b) just an app frontend for running docke
by jameshart 6y ago
Worrying in this thread how few people seem to realize that docker desktop is not a) just another word for ‘docker’ or b) just an app frontend for running docker’s daemon in the background.
People seem to forget: Docker is a Linux-only technology.
If you’re running a non-Linux desktop OS like MacOS or Windows you need access to a Linux system to run docker.
So docker desktop on MacOS runs a Linux VM for you under the hyperkit hypervisor hosting a Linux OS running containerd.
On windows the equivalent involves managing a dockerd running inside WSL.
So since we are talking here about an app that embeds an entire Linux OS image, the patching surface area is going to be considerable - it’s not just got to be updated whenever docker releases a new version. It’s actually a minimal Linux distribution.
This also means people suggesting ‘alternatives’ to using docker are missing the entire value that docker desktop brings to MacOS and Windows users.
- dgan 6y agoThank you, I never heard about Docker Desktop, and was confused what all the fuss is about in the comments
- ccmcarey 6y ago> People seem to forget: Docker is a Linux-only technology As I understand it, this is not true - you _can_ run Windows containers. https://hub.docker.com/_/microsoft-windows https://hub.docker.com/_/microsoft-windows
- jameshart 6y agoThat’s... a little bit of a stretch of what it means to be a ‘docker’ container. It’s more a ‘Windows container services’ image, which requires a host Windows OS to run... But yes, this further gets to the confusion about what ‘docker’ is vs ‘docker desktop’. Docker desktop for MacOS is certainly not going to just magically make it so you can run “docker run -it microsoft-windows” to get a CMD prompt on your MacBook though (but with a Windows VM and the right environment variables set, maybe?)