lima VS podman-desktop-companion

You can run a virtual machine (e.g. lima) from inside a nix-shell, exactly as you would do with a regular shell.

for others similarly curious, here's an example of the thing: https://github.com/noop-inc/template-java-spring-boot/blob/m...

they seem to be using the excellent lima <https://github.com/lima-vm/lima#readme> for booting on macOS; I run colima for its containerd and k8s support but strongly recommend both projects $(brew install lima colima)

Lima is what I use as well. It's quick and easy to just fire up a VM with default settings, but also very easy to configure with different file sharing options, port forwarding, different linux distributions, etc. (their examples are also pretty good IMO [1]).

In particular I use it to run an amd64 VM, which I need to run a stubborn service for work that doesn't run on arm CPUs.

[1] https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/tree/master/examples

Lima (1) is a project that packages Linux distros for MacOS and executes them via qemu in the backend. Maybe you could solve your problem by launching one of their vms and inspecting the command line it generates. You might find an option you were missing.

(1) https://github.com/lima-vm/lima

If you wish to delve into all the configuration possibilities for Lima VM, you can visit this resource.

I'd say Lima and Colima should be enough for most use cases:

https://lima-vm.io/

https://github.com/abiosoft/colima

Github: https://github.com/lima-vm/lima

Lima wraps QEMU in a simple CLI, with neat features for container users, such as filesystem sharing and automatic localhost port forwarding, as well as DNS and proxy propagation for enterprise networks. Rancher Desktop wraps Lima with k3s integration and GUI.

Talks: https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/blob/master/docs/talks.md

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.