Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Only because it is a Linux VM, and people insist on using Linux specific stuff instead of UNIX, to the point younger generations have no clue about the difference.

Even the BSDs and Solaris/Illumos have add to add Linux translation layers.

Sad state where POSIX hardly matters for portable UNIX code.



> Sad state where POSIX hardly matters for portable UNIX code.

Given the current state of POSIX applications, I would actually argue that the BSD/Linux hegemony we enjoy is the best possible outcome. The only people that are mad are the people paying for UNIX and expecting to get something better for it. Those people should have learned their lesson in the 90s, I have no empathy for POSIX apologists in 2024.

The only "sad state" is one where everyday people don't have access to free software. Mac users have always paid a time premium and a performance premium for access to normal development features, this ignorance of MacOS is a pattern that persists since the 90s. Of course nobody is bending over backwards to test portability with a proprietary OS.


In what concerns headless software probably, as they hardly managed anywhere else.


To mirror the sibling comment, where's the POSIX container/zone/vm whatever specification? If the BSDs and Linux can agree on a meaningful subset, macOS might actually follow


There isn't any in POSIX, then again, it isn't as if we now need containers for every executable for any magical reason.

Also, just like in the good old days, it isn't hard to have something dealing with HP-UX Vaults, Aix logical partitions, Solaris/Ilumnos Zones, BSD jails, macOS Virtualiztion Framework,....


Just listing technologies that sound kind of similar isn’t enough to actually answer the problems people want solved. The “good old days” were basically just people crying about being unable to have any of the features we have now because they don’t match up or differ in subtly different ways.


Best way to solve problems is not to have them in first place, like getting a Linux laptop for doing Linux work.


It's harder and harder to use Linux at work outside of bigger tech companies these days. Security standards like SOC2 seem fairly difficult to satisfy for Linux workstations without serious compromises. This is a damn shame because there are approaches to secure Linux workstations that seem pretty powerful but security standards now are prescriptive about what you must do to secure your systems, and for Linux that's going to mean paying for some subscription software that most likely only supports a couple of distros, and if you're lucky, they might support kernels from the _current_ decade.

I used Linux workstations for most of my entire career, at nearly every job. Seems like around 2018 something changed and now I'm going to have to fight to get a desktop that I feel vaguely productive under for every single job I get going forward.


Words of wisdom. I do not really have any dev related problems with WSL2 either. Normally I develop and debug on Windows and deploy to Linux as my code compiles and works natively on both. It is mostly C++ backends lately so I suspect I am in tiny minority.


I like my laptop though.


Then use it as Apple decides it is in our best interest to do so, :)


I was responding to 'people insist on using Linux specific stuff instead of UNIX'. As far as I can tell there is no way to do containers without doing highly platform specific stuff. It would be very useful if the platforms worked towards a common 'more than chroot' thing.

As far as not really needing it, it's not like computers themselves are anywhere near the bottom of Maslow's pyramid, but that doesn't make them any less useful


Can you make containers in Darwin?



Seems like it's not quite what would qualify as a container for many, but a nice effort.

> rund doesn’t offer the usual level of container isolation that is achievable on other OSes due to limited Darwin kernel API.

https://github.com/darwin-containers/rund?tab=readme-ov-file...


Yes, the macOS way, with Virtualization Framework.


The insane stability of the Linux ABI is partially what makes containers useful.

The fact that containers can reliably depend on the ABI contract, thus placing almost any clib they wish they want inside the container is fairly unique.

That extreme stability of that contract is awesome for namespace decoupling. Unfortunately Apple and Microsoft do not have such stable interfaces.

Remember containers are just namespaces.


Only in the context of Linux containers, not in general, starting with HP-UX Vaults on UNIX land.


Virtualization is not containerization. Linux has namespaces, BSD has jails, and even Windows has Windows containers (thought doubt anyone actually uses them). If that's the MacOS way, then the MacOS way must be incompetence.


Besides the way Apple puts a hard limit on the number of those you can spin up, don't they also virtualize hardware and run their own kernels? That's just not the kind of virtualization that containers are.


The virtualization layer breaks many "container" expectations, I wouldn't call this containers without big caveats. Same as firecracker VMs may give some of the ergonomics of containers but come with a lot of limitations.


(No.)




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: