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Podman Desktop Companion GUI – Parity on All Major Operating Systems

380 points by istoica 4y ago

istoica 4y ago
This release features - First binary for Windows, all due to amazing work of podman team - https://github.com/containers/podman/releases/tag/v4.0.3 https://github.com/containers/podman/releases/tag/v4.0.3 - First test flatpak image - Binaries for ARM - On Linux, easily switching between native podman and podman machine based setups - Easily identify where settings are stored - Debug panel and log level control to know everything that is happening - Optimization of settings screen - Toggle for automatically starting the podman service
- emptysongglass 4y ago
  Question: why was the official Podman desktop app [1] elevated over this app? The Companion app which this post links to appears more fully featured. [1] https://github.com/containers/podman-desktop https://github.com/containers/podman-desktop
  - johnny22 4y ago
    I didn't even know there was an official one, so thanks :)
    - Geezus-42 4y ago
      I was not aware of it either, but it appears to not be able to do as much from the discription.
machinekob 4y ago
So question from novice in containers, podman vs docker why should i consider switching from docker?
- ByteJockey 4y ago
  The main use case right now is that your company won't spring for a docker desktop license (and you work in a windows/mac shop). It works well enough for single docker images, but I've never gotten it to work well with a complicated docker-compose set-up (I haven't tried in a couple months though, so go check the docs before you write it off).
  - user3939382 4y ago
    The macOS Docker Desktop app (I haven’t experienced other versions) is free and works fine. The paid upgrade is only required for certain features that I would imagine many teams don’t need. My complaint with it is that I’d prefer if there was a 100% feature-parity CLI interface so it could run in the background, and that it should be open source. To have a low-level developer tool that’s required to be in my menubar and administered through a closed-source GUI is IMHO an insane departure from web software development norms. I use lazydocker for now but it should be an official utility that replaces the GUI app.
    - desiderantes 4y ago
      It's not free if you're in a decently sized company, that's the whole point of the Docker controversy.
    - matsemann 4y ago
      If the company is of a certain size, Docker Desktop is no longer free. As in, it's free to install and use, but your company is supposed to pay a license.
    - jffry 4y ago
      Docker Desktop is now only free "for small businesses (fewer than 250 employees AND less than $10 million in annual revenue), personal use, education, and non-commercial open source projects." per https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/ https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/
    - ByteJockey 4y ago
RegnisGnaw 4y ago
Is there WSL2 integration?
- sirmike_ 4y ago
  https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/podman-windows-wsl https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/podman-windows-wsl https://dev.to/mrstardom/how-to-run-podman-on-windows-subsystem-for-linux-wsl2-ubuntu-20-04-4l02 https://dev.to/mrstardom/how-to-run-podman-on-windows-subsys... https://dev.to/thangchung/start-podman-on-wsl2-in-4-steps-3jn9 https://dev.to/thangchung/start-podman-on-wsl2-in-4-steps-3j...
- gbraad 4y ago
  Yes. Podman allows you to use WSL2 with the `podman machine` command on Windows.
  - RegnisGnaw 4y ago
    That’s not it. What I’m looking for is the ability to run Podman Desktop on Windows and access it from WSL2. Docket Desktop supports this.
joshmarinacci 4y ago
Would this work for graphical applications? For example, could I make a container and run a linux game under X or Wayland on my Mac?
- todd3834 4y ago
  I think this is more like a docker container management system like Docker for Mac vs a VM
- zamalek 4y ago
  Have a look at Lima, which I assume is what this project uses for its Linux VM. Then you'd need to find an X client for MacOS. That would probably give you the biggest chance of getting GUI working, but you would probably be one of the first to try. Or just replace MacOS with Linux.
iFire 4y ago
Also in the same space is https://rancherdesktop.io/ https://rancherdesktop.io/.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- traceroute66 4y ago
  > Also in the same space is https://rancherdesktop.io/ https://rancherdesktop.io/. Am not familiar with Rancher Desktop, but briefly looking at their website it has a Docker CLI dependency which surely would land it in the Docker licensing controversy space, no ?
  - k8sToGo 4y ago
    What controversy? It is a replacement for docker Desktop which turned from free to payware for commercial use. Docker cli is still fair game.
  - raesene9 4y ago
    Docker CLI and Docker engine are open source :) Docker Desktop for Windows/Mac are not. So as long as the dependency is on the open source components, AFAIK they'd be fine.
  - zamalek 4y ago
    It's containerd and nerdctl by default. You can configure it to use dockerd and docker.
kelvie 4y ago
Anyone know if podman has an equivalent to `docker buildx` yet? Right now I use docker a lot to build arm images to deploy on e.g. Raspberry Pis.
- candiddevmike 4y ago
  Somewhat related, do all registries support pushing multi arch builds? DockerHub works, but I can't get it to work with GitHub registries.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    I've managed to push amd64/arm64 images to GitHub a while ago, but I was still using Docker proper at the time, so the registry itself should support this.
- zamalek 4y ago
  You have to explicitly invoke buildah bud with --arch and --manifest. You can then push the manifest with podman. There is slightly less magic, which is a HUGE advantage if you operate outside of the hairline Docker happy path.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
  I know this isn’t applicable to every use case but I recently went down the rabbit hole of cross compiling for the Pi using buildx and in my case I was able to use their 64 bit OS which was released to the general public back in Feb of this year. That one takes arm64 images no problem. Obviously no Pi’s before 2016 can use this but it solves a lot of difficulties if you aren’t absolutely requiring a cross compile and an arm64 image is available.
- Klasiaster 4y ago
  There is "podman buildx build …" which sounds like what you are searching for?
- arjvik 4y ago
  I keep hearing that buildx is a next-gen build tool, but I can't find what exactly it does. What features does it add over the classic `docker build` command?
yuuta 4y ago
metadat 4y ago
Is the Podman CLI both command-compatible and flag-compatible with the Docker CLI? If it is, or if there were a command translation layer to transform docker cli stanzas to the podman equivalent, I'd love to dump and forget about docker forever. Please keep pushing Team Podman! Self-respecting nerds everywhere are rooting for (and counting on) you!
- buzzert 4y ago
  It is! At least 99%, in my experience. The one big difference is that Podman is "daemonless", which is actually a huge advantage in a lot of cases. The one downside is that it won't automatically restart your containers if your host machine reboots.
  - born2discover 4y ago
    For that Podman provides a nifty little trick: `podman generate systemd`[0] which allows you to generate systemd unit files for your pods and/or containers. Once generated and enabled, your pods/containers act as systemd services that can be started, stopped etc. [0]: https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-generate-systemd.1.html https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-generate-sy...
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      Yup. I use this for all my home server services like Plex, Adguard, etc. I reboot my machine after kernel updates and everything comes up flawlessly.
    - markonen 4y ago
      This is no longer necessary as of Podman 3.3 or so--there's a single Podman systemd unit that will launch all containers that have restart=always.
      - born2discover 4y ago
        Interesting! Do you have by any chance a link the documentation about it, because so far all I could find are links to information about `podman generate systemd`.
rantoie 4y ago
It shows I have many containers running, but they are actually all in state 'exited'.
- istoica 4y ago
  Solved in 4.0.3-rc.3
oneplane 4y ago
Seems like a pretty nice Docker-desktop-ish GUI to me. One remark: > Application looks the same everywhere, no mental mapping! That depends on your perspective. If you are on one OS and this non-natve-looking app comes along, you have to mentally map it for your OS so it's none-nativeness requires mapping to the OS-nativeness. If you, on the other hand, only work "in" this application and just take it with you regardless of the OS, then you would indeed not need to mentally map the application itself. But I doubt this application is used that way in isolation.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Mapping different behavior between operating systems is much harder than mapping between native and non-native apps.
  - vsl 4y ago
    That’s … debatable. More importantly, however, working on : OSes frequently is rare. The developer of the app does it. I, as the user, dominantly use a single OS and want apps to be standard for that OS…
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
johnklos 4y ago
This has quite the, "oh, we got both kinds. We got country AND western" vibe. I don't think I'd call Linux, Mac and Windows "All Major Operating Systems". Also, while istoica says there's ARM support, I see no links for downloads for anything but 64 bit x86, and there's nowhere to go for more information, unless we're expected to ask all questions on Twitter. Perhaps "Parity on popular 64 bit x86 operating systems" would be more accurate?
- johnny22 4y ago
  Probably means all major OS with the contrainst that can also run podman?
- LeanderK 4y ago
  which major operating systems are missing? I would indeed call Linux, Mac and Windows the "major" operation systems. You've got most use-cases covered. Surely there are exceptions, but these are the popular options.
  - krautsourced 4y ago
    BeOS, obviously.
  - johnklos 4y ago
    I take exception with the choice of wording in "all major operating systems". If you saw a game marketed as runnable on "all major operating systems", would you think it's deceptive, or at very least a poor choice of wording, if the game really only ran on Windows 7, 8, 10 and 11? In the open source world, on a site called "Hacker News", "all major operating systems" would usually be thought to mean more than just Mac, Windows and Linux, particularly when it's chosen as a headline. Also, claims by the author about ARM support are nice, but I don't see any ARM anything, anywhere, so not only is it not "all major operating systems", but it's "just the three most popular OSes, and only then on 64 bit x86".
    - tomnipotent 4y ago
aorth 4y ago
Looks great! I'm pretty comfortable with the podman command line, but here's another (text-based) management interface that is well done: https://github.com/containers/podman-tui https://github.com/containers/podman-tui
ushakov 4y ago
yet another Electron app on my computer! neat!
flatiron 4y ago
I’m in charge of my teams dockerfile which literally runs all our crap locally for our developers. I was too lazy to care so just put in our O&M budget docker desktop (our dumb IT doesn’t let us run Linux. Half WSL. Half macOS (bleh)). Now I’m wondering if it’s worth the effort to switch. But it’s also hard to say we run podman on the desktop but docker in prod. Anyone run podman on gcp? Is that a thing?
- jossclimb 4y ago
  > Anyone run podman on gcp? Is that a thing? Ton's of people do, it's the default container CLI for OpenShift.
  - flatiron 4y ago
    Thanks. Good to know. Put that in my back pocket. Next year when they want some O@M cuts with a fat capital budget to do it I’ll scope a switch!
carlmr 4y ago
I was wondering, can you do SSH remote with podman like with Docker. I have a Windows PC where I would like to use the podman context over SSH on a Linux machine. That's the only thing that has kept me from switching. Ideally with VSCode Remote.

380 points by istoica 4y ago

This release features - First binary for Windows, all due to amazing work of podman team - https://github.com/containers/podman/releases/tag/v4.0.3 https://github.com/containers/podman/releases/tag/v4.0.3 - First test flatpak image - Binaries for ARM - On Linux, easily switching between native podman and podman machine based setups - Easily identify where settings are stored - Debug panel and log level control to know everything that is happening - Optimization of settings screen - Toggle for automatically starting the podman service

emptysongglass 4y ago
Question: why was the official Podman desktop app [1] elevated over this app? The Companion app which this post links to appears more fully featured. [1] https://github.com/containers/podman-desktop https://github.com/containers/podman-desktop
- johnny22 4y ago
  I didn't even know there was an official one, so thanks :)
  - Geezus-42 4y ago
    I was not aware of it either, but it appears to not be able to do as much from the discription.

machinekob 4y ago

So question from novice in containers, podman vs docker why should i consider switching from docker?

ByteJockey 4y ago
The main use case right now is that your company won't spring for a docker desktop license (and you work in a windows/mac shop). It works well enough for single docker images, but I've never gotten it to work well with a complicated docker-compose set-up (I haven't tried in a couple months though, so go check the docs before you write it off).
- user3939382 4y ago
  The macOS Docker Desktop app (I haven’t experienced other versions) is free and works fine. The paid upgrade is only required for certain features that I would imagine many teams don’t need. My complaint with it is that I’d prefer if there was a 100% feature-parity CLI interface so it could run in the background, and that it should be open source. To have a low-level developer tool that’s required to be in my menubar and administered through a closed-source GUI is IMHO an insane departure from web software development norms. I use lazydocker for now but it should be an official utility that replaces the GUI app.
  - desiderantes 4y ago
    It's not free if you're in a decently sized company, that's the whole point of the Docker controversy.
  - matsemann 4y ago
    If the company is of a certain size, Docker Desktop is no longer free. As in, it's free to install and use, but your company is supposed to pay a license.
  - jffry 4y ago
    Docker Desktop is now only free "for small businesses (fewer than 250 employees AND less than $10 million in annual revenue), personal use, education, and non-commercial open source projects." per https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/ https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/
  - ByteJockey 4y ago

RegnisGnaw 4y ago

Is there WSL2 integration?

sirmike_ 4y ago
https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/podman-windows-wsl https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/podman-windows-wsl https://dev.to/mrstardom/how-to-run-podman-on-windows-subsystem-for-linux-wsl2-ubuntu-20-04-4l02 https://dev.to/mrstardom/how-to-run-podman-on-windows-subsys... https://dev.to/thangchung/start-podman-on-wsl2-in-4-steps-3jn9 https://dev.to/thangchung/start-podman-on-wsl2-in-4-steps-3j...
gbraad 4y ago
Yes. Podman allows you to use WSL2 with the `podman machine` command on Windows.
- RegnisGnaw 4y ago
  That’s not it. What I’m looking for is the ability to run Podman Desktop on Windows and access it from WSL2. Docket Desktop supports this.

joshmarinacci 4y ago

Would this work for graphical applications? For example, could I make a container and run a linux game under X or Wayland on my Mac?

todd3834 4y ago
I think this is more like a docker container management system like Docker for Mac vs a VM
zamalek 4y ago
Have a look at Lima, which I assume is what this project uses for its Linux VM. Then you'd need to find an X client for MacOS. That would probably give you the biggest chance of getting GUI working, but you would probably be one of the first to try. Or just replace MacOS with Linux.

iFire 4y ago

Also in the same space is https://rancherdesktop.io/ https://rancherdesktop.io/.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
traceroute66 4y ago
> Also in the same space is https://rancherdesktop.io/ https://rancherdesktop.io/. Am not familiar with Rancher Desktop, but briefly looking at their website it has a Docker CLI dependency which surely would land it in the Docker licensing controversy space, no ?
- k8sToGo 4y ago
  What controversy? It is a replacement for docker Desktop which turned from free to payware for commercial use. Docker cli is still fair game.
- raesene9 4y ago
  Docker CLI and Docker engine are open source :) Docker Desktop for Windows/Mac are not. So as long as the dependency is on the open source components, AFAIK they'd be fine.
- zamalek 4y ago
  It's containerd and nerdctl by default. You can configure it to use dockerd and docker.

kelvie 4y ago

Anyone know if podman has an equivalent to `docker buildx` yet? Right now I use docker a lot to build arm images to deploy on e.g. Raspberry Pis.

candiddevmike 4y ago
Somewhat related, do all registries support pushing multi arch builds? DockerHub works, but I can't get it to work with GitHub registries.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  I've managed to push amd64/arm64 images to GitHub a while ago, but I was still using Docker proper at the time, so the registry itself should support this.
zamalek 4y ago
You have to explicitly invoke buildah bud with --arch and --manifest. You can then push the manifest with podman. There is slightly less magic, which is a HUGE advantage if you operate outside of the hairline Docker happy path.
SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
I know this isn’t applicable to every use case but I recently went down the rabbit hole of cross compiling for the Pi using buildx and in my case I was able to use their 64 bit OS which was released to the general public back in Feb of this year. That one takes arm64 images no problem. Obviously no Pi’s before 2016 can use this but it solves a lot of difficulties if you aren’t absolutely requiring a cross compile and an arm64 image is available.
Klasiaster 4y ago
There is "podman buildx build …" which sounds like what you are searching for?
arjvik 4y ago
I keep hearing that buildx is a next-gen build tool, but I can't find what exactly it does. What features does it add over the classic `docker build` command?

yuuta 4y ago

metadat 4y ago

Is the Podman CLI both command-compatible and flag-compatible with the Docker CLI? If it is, or if there were a command translation layer to transform docker cli stanzas to the podman equivalent, I'd love to dump and forget about docker forever. Please keep pushing Team Podman! Self-respecting nerds everywhere are rooting for (and counting on) you!

buzzert 4y ago
It is! At least 99%, in my experience. The one big difference is that Podman is "daemonless", which is actually a huge advantage in a lot of cases. The one downside is that it won't automatically restart your containers if your host machine reboots.
- born2discover 4y ago
  For that Podman provides a nifty little trick: `podman generate systemd`[0] which allows you to generate systemd unit files for your pods and/or containers. Once generated and enabled, your pods/containers act as systemd services that can be started, stopped etc. [0]: https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-generate-systemd.1.html https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-generate-sy...
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    Yup. I use this for all my home server services like Plex, Adguard, etc. I reboot my machine after kernel updates and everything comes up flawlessly.
  - markonen 4y ago
    This is no longer necessary as of Podman 3.3 or so--there's a single Podman systemd unit that will launch all containers that have restart=always.
    - born2discover 4y ago
      Interesting! Do you have by any chance a link the documentation about it, because so far all I could find are links to information about `podman generate systemd`.

rantoie 4y ago

It shows I have many containers running, but they are actually all in state 'exited'.

istoica 4y ago
Solved in 4.0.3-rc.3

oneplane 4y ago

Seems like a pretty nice Docker-desktop-ish GUI to me. One remark: > Application looks the same everywhere, no mental mapping! That depends on your perspective. If you are on one OS and this non-natve-looking app comes along, you have to mentally map it for your OS so it's none-nativeness requires mapping to the OS-nativeness. If you, on the other hand, only work "in" this application and just take it with you regardless of the OS, then you would indeed not need to mentally map the application itself. But I doubt this application is used that way in isolation.

Aeolun 4y ago
Mapping different behavior between operating systems is much harder than mapping between native and non-native apps.
- vsl 4y ago
  That’s … debatable. More importantly, however, working on : OSes frequently is rare. The developer of the app does it. I, as the user, dominantly use a single OS and want apps to be standard for that OS…

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

johnklos 4y ago

This has quite the, "oh, we got both kinds. We got country AND western" vibe. I don't think I'd call Linux, Mac and Windows "All Major Operating Systems". Also, while istoica says there's ARM support, I see no links for downloads for anything but 64 bit x86, and there's nowhere to go for more information, unless we're expected to ask all questions on Twitter. Perhaps "Parity on popular 64 bit x86 operating systems" would be more accurate?

johnny22 4y ago
Probably means all major OS with the contrainst that can also run podman?
LeanderK 4y ago
which major operating systems are missing? I would indeed call Linux, Mac and Windows the "major" operation systems. You've got most use-cases covered. Surely there are exceptions, but these are the popular options.
- krautsourced 4y ago
  BeOS, obviously.
- johnklos 4y ago
  I take exception with the choice of wording in "all major operating systems". If you saw a game marketed as runnable on "all major operating systems", would you think it's deceptive, or at very least a poor choice of wording, if the game really only ran on Windows 7, 8, 10 and 11? In the open source world, on a site called "Hacker News", "all major operating systems" would usually be thought to mean more than just Mac, Windows and Linux, particularly when it's chosen as a headline. Also, claims by the author about ARM support are nice, but I don't see any ARM anything, anywhere, so not only is it not "all major operating systems", but it's "just the three most popular OSes, and only then on 64 bit x86".
  - tomnipotent 4y ago

aorth 4y ago

Looks great! I'm pretty comfortable with the podman command line, but here's another (text-based) management interface that is well done: https://github.com/containers/podman-tui https://github.com/containers/podman-tui

ushakov 4y ago

yet another Electron app on my computer! neat!

flatiron 4y ago

I’m in charge of my teams dockerfile which literally runs all our crap locally for our developers. I was too lazy to care so just put in our O&M budget docker desktop (our dumb IT doesn’t let us run Linux. Half WSL. Half macOS (bleh)). Now I’m wondering if it’s worth the effort to switch. But it’s also hard to say we run podman on the desktop but docker in prod. Anyone run podman on gcp? Is that a thing?

jossclimb 4y ago
> Anyone run podman on gcp? Is that a thing? Ton's of people do, it's the default container CLI for OpenShift.
- flatiron 4y ago
  Thanks. Good to know. Put that in my back pocket. Next year when they want some O@M cuts with a fat capital budget to do it I’ll scope a switch!

carlmr 4y ago

I was wondering, can you do SSH remote with podman like with Docker. I have a Windows PC where I would like to use the podman context over SSH on a Linux machine. That's the only thing that has kept me from switching. Ideally with VSCode Remote.