Plus everybody is like 'it's the same thing, no learning curve' but then I start reading up on it and uhoh, learning curves :p

Exactly this. I tried podman, as a "container" newb, based on the idea that it's a (better) drop-in replacement for docker, but it didn't work. My quick attempts to resolve it went nowhere, and there were no instructions for the container I was trying to spin up for podman to explain the differences required.

So, in frustration, I decided to try docker and it just worked.

Good enough for me, for now. I still prefer the idea of not having a daemon running with root privileges, so I'll likely move over to podman eventually, but I only have so much time to waste tinkering with my setup. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Just use the repositories in the terminal...

Oh why you gotta talk so dirty to this little chatbot

Did you mean rc_start $1 as the last line of that script?

The learning curve for quadlets is quite harsh in my opinion. I started with podman compose 3 years ago for my homelab, because it allowed user containers.

I tried to migrate to quadlets unsuccessfully, several times over the years. it was only recently that my self-hosted Qwen was capable enough to figure out where I was messing up and automate the process a bit.

I probably wasn’t sufficiently motivated. It felt like podman compose is basically docker compose, but quadlets are a quite a bit different in form and function, so I was never able to grok them:

Docker is foss. Docker desktop and docker sbx are not.

If you install the GUI it literally won't let you open it unless you agree to their telemetry...

It does, but it seems like it's still a bit of an afterthought. But it's getting better.

Still tho, podman is fine and I like the project as an alternative to docker.

So, the Docker engine is free, just not the software under certain stipulations. See I don't like that. A weird caveat for using it.

Docker desktop is not. (open source)

Which can be a pretty big deal.

This works out to: The product is unencumbered, but the only reliable installer is encumbered as fuck.

That's a "no thanks", from me.

I don't need the sword of "Docker fucking with my colleague's ability to collaborate" hanging over each of my projects.

I'm not mad at folks using Docker for backwards compatibility. I just don't need to make the problem worse.

Haha idk, nothing really. Just found a lot of recommendations over Docker for podman.

It doesn't "bypass your firewall"... it lets you shoot yourself in the foot. You're asking it to open ports without specifying an explicit network interface so it opens them on all interfaces. Which includes opening up the firewall, because what's the point of putting up a service and blocking it in the firewall.

Also, doing it by hand would be incredibly tedious. Docker automatically adjusts the rules to match the ports and interfaces to its private container netmasks, and brings them up or down as needed when the containers start/stop.

All you have to do is bind ports to localhost or to a private interface if you don't want the service to be publicly exposed.

Beginners get bitten by this because they say ports: 9999:9999 instead of ports: 127.0.0.1:9999:9999/tcp like they should. Unfortunately most examples out there use the terse version and never explain why it's bad.