Apple Quietly Launches Container On GitHub To Bring Linux Development To macOS (nerds.xyz)
- Reference: 0178012627
- News link: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/06/11/2116233/apple-quietly-launches-container-on-github-to-bring-linux-development-to-macos
- Source link: https://nerds.xyz/apple-quietly-launches-container-on-github-to-bring-linux-development-to-macos-in-a-native-way/
> Apple has released a new developer tool on GitHub called [2]Container , offering a fresh approach to running Linux containers directly on macOS. Unlike Docker or Podman, this tool is designed to feel at home in the Apple ecosystem and hooks into frameworks already built into the operating system. Container runs standard OCI images, but it doesn't use a single shared Linux VM. Instead, it [3]creates a small Linux virtual machine for every container you spin up . That sounds heavy at first, but the VMs are lightweight and boot quickly. Each one is isolated, which Apple claims improves both security and privacy. Developers can run containerized workloads locally with native macOS support and without needing to install third-party container platforms.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~BrianFagioli
[2] https://github.com/apple/container
[3] https://nerds.xyz/apple-quietly-launches-container-on-github-to-bring-linux-development-to-macos-in-a-native-way/
2008 called (Score:2, Funny)
And asked " what have you poor bastards been doing for 17 years ?"
And " will this match the new windows vista glassy look?"
Apple Virtualization runs GUI Linux (Score:3)
> And asked " what have you poor bastards been doing for 17 years ?"
Apple Virtualization Framework has run Linux distros for many years. Console on Intel. GUI on Apple Silicon (ARM). These were mostly for testing. Launching a fresh copy of Linux each time.
Apple has also been a popular Linux development platform far before that too. Most "Linux" software is really POSIX, not Linux specific. It builds and runs just fine on Macs. Many Linux devs switched to MacBook Pro for their development systems. Got things working in Apple's native Unix environment, then tested on Linux
Re: (Score:2)
So I get the impression the container thing is neither a hypervisor nor some kind of management interface like... virtmanager or virtualbox? Or... I think someone below said it's close to windows subsystem for linux?
I see you can get vmware and virtualbox for apple ... so you should be able to run whatever you want in a virtual machine, no?
Apple seems late to the virtualization party.
Yeah, but the glassy look that windows ripped off from apple, it's kind of sad to see, apple re releasing their own copied de
Re: (Score:2)
> So I get the impression the container thing is neither a hypervisor nor some kind of management interface like... virtmanager or virtualbox? Or... I think someone below said it's close to windows subsystem for linux?
Apple Virtualization Framework, introduced into macOS in 2020. It allows code to create and run low overhead macOS and Linux VMs.
"Virtualization"
[1]https://developer.apple.com/do... [apple.com]
"Running Linux in a Virtual Machine"
[2]https://developer.apple.com/do... [apple.com]
[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization
[2] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/running-linux-in-a-virtual-machine
Good luck with the pathetic 8GB of RAM (Score:1)
Even 16GB RAM is going to be miserable.
8GB ought to be enough for every one - Tim Gates (Score:1)
Oh yeah!
"Power Users" know to upgrade RAM (Score:2)
Base RAM configurations are pretty much for Email, Browser and Productivity Apps users. PC or Mac.
"Power Users" know to upgrade RAM. It's the best thing you can do to improve performance and longevity of the hardware. PC or Mac.
Re: (Score:2)
Pay double the regular price to run a VM. What for?
Re: (Score:2)
> Pay double the regular price to run a VM. What for?
Well it's not double. And while it does let one system cover three platforms (macOS, Linux and Windows), and provide more RAM for any more technical RAM hungry applications you might run. It also adds years to the useful life of a machine, postponing the need for a replacement.
Re: (Score:2)
RAM cost $/GB is more than double. Obviously you think it's not pathetic enough. So you added Windows, on ARM MAC! It is certainly not for home use, not for business either. You are just asking for trouble :) BTW, if anybody can successfully run Yocto on MAC Linux I would appreciate to know. I don't have the stomach to try.
Re: (Score:2)
16 has been miserable for any power user for some time now. I’ve got 48gb RAM plus the dedicated GPU RAM. That isn’t anything special these days. 16 will do you fine for kiddie games and running multiple tabs on a web browser. But I had 16 gigs and a 2 gig video card back in 2010.
Re: (Score:2)
16GB is the base RAM for all new Macs.
Potentially interesting given the constraints (Score:4, Interesting)
When launching a container, they boot a Linux VM that just has a single, statically-linked executable inside: vminitd. No systemd or other daemons. No libc or even ld.so, just vminitd.
That process is responsible for talking to things outside the VM, and for launching the container, etc. When the container process exits, vminitd exits and shuts down the VM. Starting the VM takes ~100ms, and the amount of memory and CPU cores it gets are taken directly from the container configuration. So, it's not terrible in terms of memory usage. It's sort of ideal for short-lived containers, since it starts up so fast and only uses as much memory as the container ends up actually allocating (not what it asked for). I'm not sure how they manage to boot Linux in a VM that fast, honestly. Maybe they have a pickled pre-booted image ready to be mapped into memory so they can tell Linux it's just woken up from being suspended? I have read some of the documentation, but I haven't dug into the code yet.
Meanwhile, it uses Rosetta2 to execute x86 code, so you can both build and run multi-platform containers.
I don't know that I'll actually use it myself, since Rancher Desktop is pretty slick, and I need Kubernetes. But, maybe someone will get k3s working on this and I can get away from having to run a big VM all the time. In any case, it's nice to see Apple recognizing how many people use their machines to build Linux containers, and it's nice to see them making it open source while they're at it. It isn't perfect, but it's at least somewhat clever.
Creating Linux VM using Apple Virtualization .... (Score:3)
> I'm not sure how they manage to boot Linux in a VM that fast, honestly..
See Apple Virtualization framework. It's part of macOS. Under Intel Macs it quickly starts up fresh console base Linux VMs. Under Apple Silicon (ARM) Macs, GUI based Linux VMs.
"The Virtualization framework provides high-level APIs for creating and managing virtual machines (VM) on Apple silicon and Intel-based Mac computers. Use this framework to boot and run macOS or Linux-based operating systems in custom environments that you define. The framework supports the Virtual I/O Device (VIRTIO) specification
You want to use macOS' Virtual I/O Device (VIRTIO) (Score:2)
To do things properly use the Apple Virtualization framework.
"Virtualization"
[1]https://developer.apple.com/do... [apple.com]
"Running Linux in a Virtual Machine"
[2]https://developer.apple.com/do... [apple.com]
[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization
[2] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/running-linux-in-a-virtual-machine
Sounds suspiciously like WSL (Score:2)
Windows Subsystem for Linux lets you do pretty much the same stuff. Lighter than a VM, some degree of isolation, uses the OS. I've personally just tinkered with it a bit, but other developers who do Linux all the time, love it, because it gives them a lot more flexibility than running true VMs.
Sounds like Apple Virtualization framework (Score:1)
> Windows Subsystem for Linux lets you do pretty much the same stuff. Lighter than a VM, some degree of isolation, uses the OS. I've personally just tinkered with it a bit, but other developers who do Linux all the time, love it, because it gives them a lot more flexibility than running true VMs.
Sounds suspiciously like something using the Apple Virtualization framework, which has been around since 2020. Basically you can have code create and launch a Linux VM for you.
Great now how about on iPad? (Score:2)
crickets
Oh Apple (Score:3, Informative)
Only Apple would create multiple virtual machines and call then Containers. I just know in a few months I've going to hear some Apple fanboi brag that they don't use virtual machines anymore, they use Containers because containers are lightweight and efficient. And the reality distortion field grows stronger.
Re: (Score:1)
To be fair, containers are insecure crap. So at least the tech decision is good. And, incidentally, "container" is also a short form of "VM container", so while Apple may not be using the current mainstream terminology (which is pretty dumb anyways), they are technically correct.
Re: Oh Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh, I very much do.
Re: (Score:1)
And some sock-pupet moderator dishonesty does not change that at all.
Re: Oh Apple (Score:2)
Found Solomon's Slashdot account...
Re: (Score:3)
> Containers because containers are lightweight and efficient.
You laugh, but here I have a business critical service which is currently running on Solaris on SPARC. It's 16 years old, to give you some perspective on the architecture: tightly coupled C/C++ processes using shared memory IPC and Oracle RDBMS as backing storage, with app-layer caching.
Across all environments, the legacy system consists of 8 servers and 168 CPU cores. It could do with a bit more metal, but it's coping OK.
The Linux x86 containerised solution about to replace it comprises 55 servers, 3,500 C
Re: Oh Apple (Score:2)
The problem there isn't the technology, it's the same old idiots in management that listen to consultants peddling the latest shiny. Containers have their uses, and so do bare metal solutions.
Re: (Score:3)
They could have called them Apple Crates.
Re: Oh Apple (Score:1)
Thatâ(TM)s a banger.