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After Docker Desktop randomly started consuming insane amounts of memory again we switched to Podman and it was literally as easy as installing it and pointing

• chrisweekly 3mo ago
  I liked Orbstack better than colima which was better than Docker Desktop. Then I found https://smolmachines.com's https://smolmachines.com's smolvm microvms.
  • zuzululu 3mo ago
    been using orbstack but this smol stuff is interesting is this firecracker or total rewrite
    • binsquare 3mo ago
      author of smol machines here, it has no relation to firecracker. It runs ontop of the libkrun vmm forked with optimizations, which is the underlying lib powering podman as well. open source, will contribute upstream when possible: https://github.com/smol-machines/libkrun https://github.com/smol-machines/libkrun
      • glenjamin 3mo ago
        Upthread the implication seems to be that smolmachines would be in some way a replacement for orbstack to run docker containers But it seems more like a completely different way to run isolated workloads?
        • binsquare 3mo ago
          smol machines is a virtual machine, akin to firecracker but designed to run locally as well It also has container-inages support built-in with crun so you can create a VM with a container running by default. You can also just... run docker inside of it.
      • zuzululu 3mo ago
        good stuff man i just installed it and its super fast im just not sure is this really secure to run untrusted code i can't find any white papers
        • binsquare 3mo ago
          the underlying vmm is libkrun: https://github.com/libkrun/libkrun https://github.com/libkrun/libkrun is battle tested and used for podman. It provides kernel isolation for running untrusted code which is a security boundary that traditional containers can't guarantee. I'm engaged with a third party security penetration company for their review, and will be happy to share it publicly when it is available.
          • zuzululu 3mo ago
            thank you. definitely enjoying smol. this is a very nice alternative to docker, orbstack even firecracker
    • LeBit 3mo ago
      Can smolmachines run devcontainers? K3d?
      • binsquare 3mo ago
        yes to both, here's the example for running docker(indirectly, devcontainers) inside smolvm: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/main/examples/docker-in-vm/docker.smolfile https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/main/examples/d...
        • LeBit 3mo ago
          This is very cool. The example is thorough and well documented. I am trying smolmachines this weekend. Thanks.
  • trymas 3mo ago
    Fixed link: https://smolmachines.com/ https://smolmachines.com/
    • chrisweekly 3mo ago
      thanks!
  • meszmate 3mo ago
    Since I came across orbstack that's the only one I use for docker on macOS
• bmurphy1976 3mo ago
  It's been a couple months so I forget what problems I ran into, but Docker's AI bullshit pushed me over the edge and I tried switching to Podman. I ran into some compatibility issues. Alas I don't recall the details. So I tried Rancher Desktop and other than I keep forgetting its name it just worked. It's another simple option for those who need it.
• geek_at 3mo ago
  don't forget `alias docker='podman'` for muscle memory
  • deleted 3mo ago
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