4 ms·

OrbStack: Light Linux containers and VMs on macOS, early access

27 points by wejick 4y ago

jsjohnst 4y ago
OrbStack’s website 404s. Read into that what you will. Further, the link shared here seems to be a referral url, but I might be wrong.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- danpalmer 4y ago
  > Further, the link shared here seems to be a referral url, but I might be wrong. I think it's just the ID for the survey in the tool they've used to build the interest sign-up form.
  - jsjohnst 4y ago
    It’s the /r/… that made me think referral link, but browsing through tally’s feature set, it doesn’t seem like that’s a feature they offer.
    - cassianoleal 4y ago
      If you open https://tally.so/ https://tally.so/ it takes you to a form builder, so the OP URL is probably just a direct link to a form they spun up to collect data.
sixbrx 4y ago
Link in first sentence is 404. Looks interesting. The biggest problem I have with Docker Desktop on MacOS though is the constant cpu draw of 3-5% (or more, I can't tell if "kernel_task" seeming more busy when Docker is running is real). Wondering if we get any improvement there?
- salzig 4y ago
  did you had a look into Colima? https://github.com/abiosoft/colima https://github.com/abiosoft/colima
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    I'll vouch for colima. Been using it since I got my M1 Air at launch and it's been stellar. That said, it still uses ~2.5-3% CPU when idle. This is probably background processes inside the VM and it's not a lot, but it's there. I have had instances where I had completely forgotten I had the VM up and didn't notice any impact on battery life though, so I don't really think it's a big deal. It's also dead easy to just stop it when not in use. To the GP, increased kernel_task usage (if any) might not be having any impact on battery at all. The main utility for this process, from my experience, is to idle the CPU when it gets hot. This is how the thermal throttle works on macOS.
danpalmer 4y ago
Sounds neat, but no demo, no video, no evidence at all of it achieving the stated goals. Also they're doing a survey to see how much people would pay per month for what sounds like a single download app (not a service). Tech-wise, would be interested to hear what this is using. I assume it's using the macOS Hypervisor framework?
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  > Tech-wise, would be interested to hear what this is using. Especially due to the claim on “30Gbps networking” considering there isn’t a Apple Silicon Mac with over a single 10GbE port.
  - bongobingo1 4y ago
    They may mean host->container which can have performance limits, at least when running via slirp4netns in user mode due to all the frame copying (who knows if they meet both those requirements on macOS). Newer things like pasta avoid some overheads.
    - danpalmer 4y ago
      Macs also don't typically have disks that fast, so unless it's transferring out of memory, which won't saturate 30Gbps for long, that also seems to not be that useful. Latency feels like it would be a better trade-off here, I wonder what they're doing to reduce host to container latency.
      - jsjohnst 4y ago
        > I wonder what they're doing to reduce host to container latency Considering that any solution they came up with is almost assured to be using Apple’s virtualization frameworks, I’d venture the answer is near zero (at least for work they specifically did).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
e-Minguez 4y ago
vaporware until they show something... the url is sketchy to say at least, the main domain doesn't work...
Jenzaah 4y ago
Isn't this something this guy is trying to do: https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/containers_darwin_containerd/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/containers_da... This achieves linux containers on macOS.
- happymellon 4y ago
  This looks extremely interesting, though it has also stalled.
erdaniels 4y ago
I feel like the latest Docker Desktop on Ventura works quite well in both amd64 and arm64 containers. This might be with the experimental VM settings on as well as the Rosetta x64 in containers support. As much as I don't love Docker Desktop with the forced login and what not, I can't tell what this is offering over it? Maybe VMs? For VMs, I'm using UTM.app and it's fantastic.

27 points by wejick 4y ago

OrbStack’s website 404s. Read into that what you will. Further, the link shared here seems to be a referral url, but I might be wrong.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
danpalmer 4y ago
> Further, the link shared here seems to be a referral url, but I might be wrong. I think it's just the ID for the survey in the tool they've used to build the interest sign-up form.
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  It’s the /r/… that made me think referral link, but browsing through tally’s feature set, it doesn’t seem like that’s a feature they offer.
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    If you open https://tally.so/ https://tally.so/ it takes you to a form builder, so the OP URL is probably just a direct link to a form they spun up to collect data.

sixbrx 4y ago

Link in first sentence is 404. Looks interesting. The biggest problem I have with Docker Desktop on MacOS though is the constant cpu draw of 3-5% (or more, I can't tell if "kernel_task" seeming more busy when Docker is running is real). Wondering if we get any improvement there?

salzig 4y ago
did you had a look into Colima? https://github.com/abiosoft/colima https://github.com/abiosoft/colima
- cassianoleal 4y ago
  I'll vouch for colima. Been using it since I got my M1 Air at launch and it's been stellar. That said, it still uses ~2.5-3% CPU when idle. This is probably background processes inside the VM and it's not a lot, but it's there. I have had instances where I had completely forgotten I had the VM up and didn't notice any impact on battery life though, so I don't really think it's a big deal. It's also dead easy to just stop it when not in use. To the GP, increased kernel_task usage (if any) might not be having any impact on battery at all. The main utility for this process, from my experience, is to idle the CPU when it gets hot. This is how the thermal throttle works on macOS.

danpalmer 4y ago

Sounds neat, but no demo, no video, no evidence at all of it achieving the stated goals. Also they're doing a survey to see how much people would pay per month for what sounds like a single download app (not a service). Tech-wise, would be interested to hear what this is using. I assume it's using the macOS Hypervisor framework?

jsjohnst 4y ago
> Tech-wise, would be interested to hear what this is using. Especially due to the claim on “30Gbps networking” considering there isn’t a Apple Silicon Mac with over a single 10GbE port.
- bongobingo1 4y ago
  They may mean host->container which can have performance limits, at least when running via slirp4netns in user mode due to all the frame copying (who knows if they meet both those requirements on macOS). Newer things like pasta avoid some overheads.
  - danpalmer 4y ago
    Macs also don't typically have disks that fast, so unless it's transferring out of memory, which won't saturate 30Gbps for long, that also seems to not be that useful. Latency feels like it would be a better trade-off here, I wonder what they're doing to reduce host to container latency.
    - jsjohnst 4y ago
      > I wonder what they're doing to reduce host to container latency Considering that any solution they came up with is almost assured to be using Apple’s virtualization frameworks, I’d venture the answer is near zero (at least for work they specifically did).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

e-Minguez 4y ago

vaporware until they show something... the url is sketchy to say at least, the main domain doesn't work...

Jenzaah 4y ago

Isn't this something this guy is trying to do: https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/containers_darwin_containerd/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/containers_da... This achieves linux containers on macOS.

happymellon 4y ago
This looks extremely interesting, though it has also stalled.

erdaniels 4y ago

I feel like the latest Docker Desktop on Ventura works quite well in both amd64 and arm64 containers. This might be with the experimental VM settings on as well as the Rosetta x64 in containers support. As much as I don't love Docker Desktop with the forced login and what not, I can't tell what this is offering over it? Maybe VMs? For VMs, I'm using UTM.app and it's fantastic.