Let’s walk through what Podman is and how to use it as a Docker alternative on Linux. Expect a straightforward guide on installing Podman, running containers with it, and understanding the basics.
Podman is great, but I only found it useful after learning quadlets and how to use podlet to generate quadlets (or quadlet pods) from dockerfiles. Now all my containers run with nice systemd commands in rootless podman containers instead of rooted dockerfiles (coz docker requires root unless you jump through hoops, when I started you couldn’t). Quadlet syntax is so much cleaner than docker too.
You can also just use podman compose without learning a new system and just use published compose files directly.
rootless docker isn’t too difficult (anymore). I wouldn’t change a running system but for a new system it’s always podman.
I like
quadlets, but I wishpodletcould handle translating external networks. Right now, it just fails, and needs manual intervention. Also, afaik, there’s no way to preserve comments when translating.For me, it’s the opposite. I vastly prefer the compose syntax. In general, I guess I prefer
yamlbased syntax totomlorjsonbased ones. It’s just more readable due to the indentation.but I wish podlet could handle translating external networks. Right now, it just fails, and needs manual intervention. Also, afaik, there’s no way to preserve comments when translating.
Yeah, valid, it always needs an eye on the output, but it gets you at least 90+% of the way, often 100%.
I like that the syntax is systemd derived, YMMV I guess.
Podman is amazing, I’m using it when I can. Sometimes some distros ship an older version and can cause problems, but on a newer version I don’t see the reason to use docker ever again.
Serious question: I’ve been running rootless Docker since it became possible. In what way is it limited compared to using Podman?
Apart from the other comment: rootless podman is easier to set up (there’s basically no set up needed).
Docker works. Podman requires a ton of workarounds and wastes my time. I hope it gets good one day, but I’m not reverting to using systemd to manage containers.
You sound like you work at us-east-1
I know this is a joke. But the reason I cannot have podman is because the tooling for us-east-1 will simply not work with podman (on my pc).
I just released my first cross compiling app on Linux and Windows, using Podman. This is so great.
podman missed the chance to grow, by making it very difficult to configure and use it. The way quadlets work is just such a struggle, if you have been using compose for years. And no, I don’t want to use podman compose, as I can just use rootless docker instead.
The way quadlets work is just such a struggle, if you have been using compose for years
Learning new things is hard, sure, but quadlets are not that complex. Take a few hours to sit down and read through the manual or a tutorial, and you’ll find they’re easier to maintain, write, and deploy.
Hot take: Docker compose is poorly designed, and very little thought went into the deployment side. It only ‘won’ because it was there first, and bad habits are tough to break.
Fully agree with the compose part, as it has some weird shit in it, too. I gave podman with quadlets many chances and after a while, I always switched back to docker for some reason
I’ve been thinking about using this to replace my self-hosted docker repo. Does anyone know how well this works with hosting a docker repo?
Afaik it works perfectly. Podman can use Docker hub with zero issues, and is sometimes configured as the default repo for fetching images without a qualified name. Conversely, I think Docker works perfectly with the Podman ecosystem repos too (like quay.io)
