[sudonem]

Linux. It’s not the installation of podman that can be fiddly. It’s the setting up systemd unit files and local user accounts for rootless / daemonless deployment of containerized apps that can be a headache.

It’s not hard. It’s just fiddly.

[drnick1]

> It’s just fiddly.

You could quite simply have a systemd file that calls podman compose up when the service starts and podman compose down when it stops. Basically the same systemd file for every container stack defined in a single compose.yml. It's extremely easy, and does not do stuff behind your back like Docker (such as silently altering iptables rules).

[sudonem]

Sure. But that wasn’t OP’s question.

The question was why Podman doesn’t have the adoption levels that Docker does, and my supposition was that (for those that don’t have much Linux administration experience) added steps like systems configs, or quadlets etc are just another barrier to entry that you don’t have with Docker.

I’m not arguing that Docker is better (I think Podman wins in a lot of ways actually) just that Podman requires a bit of extra work to implement well and that is just enough of an annoyance to tip the scales towards Docker.

[drnick1]

I think it's just because Docker came before. Podman is more secure and architecturally cleaner, but not touching something that works is an equally good reason not to migrate.

[jrmg]

You can just run podman containers as root if you don’t want the fiddllyness of user accounts - it’s no less secure than rootful Docker.

[dialogbox]

It might not be the popular way here in HN but nowadays I just ask llm to create required configuration files and everything is so easy. Of course you need to review them but tbh no more headaches at least with config files.

[scheme271]

Doesn't quadlet fix some or all of those problems? It's supposed to allow you to convert podman containers to systemd unit files automatically

[sudonem]

> Doesn't quadlet fix some or all of those problems?

It definitely can solve some of those problems, and that’s the approach I’d generally recommend.

But to answer OP’s question - my supposition was that the mere fact that such a device is even necessary (when compared to docker) is an added work that isn’t obviously easy to implement for someone who is just trying to learn how to containerize their app (and might be a developer but not that experienced with Linux administration) and this one of the main reasons Podman isn’t as popular as Docker.

I think Podman is better in a number of ways, but it isn’t the most intuitive to implement compared to Docker.