distribution-spec VS podman-desktop-companion

Back in 2013, a little company called Docker made it really easy to start using containers to package up applications. A big key to their success was the OCI (you can learn about that here), an industry wide initiative to have standards around how we package up our applications. Because of OCI standards, we have hundreds (maybe thousands?) of tools that can be combined to manage and deploy applications. So why aren’t we using this for packaging up Notebooks and AI models as well? It would make deploying, sharing, and managing our models easier for everyone involved.

Kubernetes on the backend used to utilize docker for much of its container runtime solutions. One of the modular features of Kubernetes is the ability to utilize a Container Runtime Interface or CRI. The problem was that Docker didn't really meet the spec properly and they had to maintain a shim to translate properly. Instead users could utilize the popular containerd or cri-o runtimes. These follow the Open Container Initiative or OCI's guidelines on container formats.

OCI stands for Open Container Initiative, and its goal as an organization is to define a specification for container formats and runtime.

https://opencontainers.org/

Here is Containerfile from the repo: https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/blob/main/Containerfile

apko allows us to build OCI container images from .apk packages.

Flagger's load testing service can be installed via a Kustomization resource based on manifests packaged as an artifact in an Open Container Initiative (OCI) registry

CRI-O is a lightweight container runtime for Kubernetes. It is an implementation of Kubernetes CRI to use Open Container Initiative (OCI) compatible runtimes for running pods. It supports runc and Kata Containers as the container runtimes, but any OCI-compatible runtime can be integrated.

So somebody else created runj (runj is an experimental, proof-of-concept OCI-compatible runtime for FreeBSD jails.) https://github.com/samuelkarp/runj

Btw #2: For a nice, cross-platform GUI app thing for Docker & Podman here's this one: Podman Desktop Companion.

Podman Desktop Companion (cross-platform, supports Docker too)

Docker in WSL2 too works but with Podman the environment setup may be a little more flexible depending on what you want to achieve on what distro etc. In any case you can use the cross-platform Podman Desktop Companion app to manage your containers via a GUI.

Both Distrobox and Podman can be installed without root access btw and, here's a neat little GUI for managing Podman & Docker containers: Podman Desktop Companion (cross-platform).

No, that's incorrect. Also, there's the unofficial Pods app, and the Podman Desktop Companion.

For a GUI to manage your Podman and/or Docker containers, install the Podman Desktop Companion app (yes, it supports both Podman and Docker). They say that the Windows version can be used to manage the containers running in WSL2 but a more sure way would be to pick the Linux app and to install it in the WSL2 distro your containers are installed & running in.

I'm skeptic how long this will last unless they bring out some cutting-edge innovations. I frankly used and loved Docker Desktop for a long time because it was the easiest way to get going and I believe even k8s is included now which is great for hobbyists and those who just want to get things done. But, I've been annoyed by the UX changes and the push to login to docker hub.

While in 2023, there are most certainly great alternatives that are relatively easy to install from the terminal and get going, I guess there's not yet a definitive replacement that comes with the GUI too. Best I can think of is Podman Desktop Companion[1] but not sure how well this works.

[1]: https://iongion.github.io/podman-desktop-companion/

How does this compare to Podman Desktop Companion? They look very similar - nearly identical - yet clearly two different projects.