7 ms·

Well, I hadn't heard of podman until now, and I imagine I'm not the only one. Does it consistently have functional parity with docker?

eric__cartman 5y ago
I use it on my Fedora dev machine and it's pretty good. Still wouldn't replace a mission critical machine with it, as it isn't the primary target for docker containers to run on and it can break more easily.
- hda111 5y ago
  It will break from time to time. But so does Docker Desktop. Neither Docker nor Podman are suitable for mission critical stuff. Their market is entirely dev machines and devs can fix in on their own.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    > Neither Docker nor Podman are suitable for mission critical stuff. Their market is entirely dev machines and devs can fix in on their own. Pretty sure they're used for more than that.
eptcyka 5y ago
trey-jones, I apologize, but I cannot reply to you directly. The biggest showstopper for podman is that it runs entirely in userspace on Linux. Having said that, I use it as a drop-in replacement for Docker and it's only become better in the past year. This is somewhat irrelevant to the Docker Desktop product, as podman doesn't provide a nice packaged up solution, but you can use podman on Windows and Mac as long as you have a Linux host available, either as a guest VM or as a machine _elsewhere_ on the network, see [1]. I only use Linux if I can, and the ability to run images without having to run a daemon with root privileges is a very big bonus for me, but it might not be for you. Now I do wonder, how hard would it be to declare a minimal nixOS VM for running as one's podman host :) [1]: https://podman.io/getting-started/installation.html https://podman.io/getting-started/installation.html
- Sebb767 5y ago
  > The biggest showstopper for podman is that it runs entirely in userspace on Linux. As I see it, that's the whole selling point. Need to have something with limited rights or build a container without root? Podman is the way to go.
  - eptcyka 5y ago
    I agree, what's missing is a nice VM appliance for macOS and Windows.
  - Frost1x 5y ago
    This is what singularity did in the HPC world (amongst other handy features): https://singularity.hpcng.org/ https://singularity.hpcng.org/
  - rhatdan 5y ago
    No true. Podman runs natively on a MAC, using a Linux VM for containers, just like Docker. `podman machine init` pulls down a VM, after which you can start running, developing, and building the same images that Docker and Kubernetes use. Just `brew install podman`. For Windows, Podman is available on many distributions in WSL2.
- rualca 5y ago
  > The biggest showstopper for podman is that it runs entirely in userspace on Linux. Why do you believe that? Docker's "root by default" design decision is the bane of Docker. Podman is even described as Docker done right in that regard.
- antonyh 5y ago
  This might even be a good selling point - sharing a container host amongst multiple devs means that the hardware for devs can be lighter/cheaper. Even for myself flying solo I can use my old desktop as a Podman server, conserving RAM/CPU in my development env. Sounds good to me.
zerkten 5y ago
It doesn't matter if it has parity of functionality when Docker has grown to the point where it has name recognition with enterprises and a sales team that can engage with these large customers. It needs to have parity in all other pseudo-layers (3rd party tool support, support plans, OS support, someone to sign a contract with, compliance tools, etc.) We know most of these go unused or have no real meaning to devs, but they unlock enterprise procurement. I believe podman has a linkage to RedHat which may actually bring all of the things that procurement want to hear, but the question is whether the door is open to RedHat, or not. Procurement departments can be fickle, preferring Oracle for everything or the other way round trying to eradicate Oracle while permitting a combination of others. It's all politics based on previous experiences and opinions in the end.
viraptor 5y ago
It doesn't do caching, which disqualifies it from many use cases unfortunately: https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-build.1.html https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-build.1.htm... > --cache-from > Images to utilize as potential cache sources. Podman does not currently support caching so this is a NOOP.

eric__cartman 5y ago

I use it on my Fedora dev machine and it's pretty good. Still wouldn't replace a mission critical machine with it, as it isn't the primary target for docker containers to run on and it can break more easily.

hda111 5y ago
It will break from time to time. But so does Docker Desktop. Neither Docker nor Podman are suitable for mission critical stuff. Their market is entirely dev machines and devs can fix in on their own.
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  > Neither Docker nor Podman are suitable for mission critical stuff. Their market is entirely dev machines and devs can fix in on their own. Pretty sure they're used for more than that.

eptcyka 5y ago

trey-jones, I apologize, but I cannot reply to you directly. The biggest showstopper for podman is that it runs entirely in userspace on Linux. Having said that, I use it as a drop-in replacement for Docker and it's only become better in the past year. This is somewhat irrelevant to the Docker Desktop product, as podman doesn't provide a nice packaged up solution, but you can use podman on Windows and Mac as long as you have a Linux host available, either as a guest VM or as a machine _elsewhere_ on the network, see [1]. I only use Linux if I can, and the ability to run images without having to run a daemon with root privileges is a very big bonus for me, but it might not be for you. Now I do wonder, how hard would it be to declare a minimal nixOS VM for running as one's podman host :) [1]: https://podman.io/getting-started/installation.html https://podman.io/getting-started/installation.html

Sebb767 5y ago
> The biggest showstopper for podman is that it runs entirely in userspace on Linux. As I see it, that's the whole selling point. Need to have something with limited rights or build a container without root? Podman is the way to go.
- eptcyka 5y ago
  I agree, what's missing is a nice VM appliance for macOS and Windows.
- Frost1x 5y ago
  This is what singularity did in the HPC world (amongst other handy features): https://singularity.hpcng.org/ https://singularity.hpcng.org/
- rhatdan 5y ago
  No true. Podman runs natively on a MAC, using a Linux VM for containers, just like Docker. `podman machine init` pulls down a VM, after which you can start running, developing, and building the same images that Docker and Kubernetes use. Just `brew install podman`. For Windows, Podman is available on many distributions in WSL2.
rualca 5y ago
> The biggest showstopper for podman is that it runs entirely in userspace on Linux. Why do you believe that? Docker's "root by default" design decision is the bane of Docker. Podman is even described as Docker done right in that regard.
antonyh 5y ago
This might even be a good selling point - sharing a container host amongst multiple devs means that the hardware for devs can be lighter/cheaper. Even for myself flying solo I can use my old desktop as a Podman server, conserving RAM/CPU in my development env. Sounds good to me.

zerkten 5y ago

It doesn't matter if it has parity of functionality when Docker has grown to the point where it has name recognition with enterprises and a sales team that can engage with these large customers. It needs to have parity in all other pseudo-layers (3rd party tool support, support plans, OS support, someone to sign a contract with, compliance tools, etc.) We know most of these go unused or have no real meaning to devs, but they unlock enterprise procurement. I believe podman has a linkage to RedHat which may actually bring all of the things that procurement want to hear, but the question is whether the door is open to RedHat, or not. Procurement departments can be fickle, preferring Oracle for everything or the other way round trying to eradicate Oracle while permitting a combination of others. It's all politics based on previous experiences and opinions in the end.

viraptor 5y ago

It doesn't do caching, which disqualifies it from many use cases unfortunately: https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-build.1.html https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-build.1.htm... > --cache-from > Images to utilize as potential cache sources. Podman does not currently support caching so this is a NOOP.