Comment by dajtxx

The problem (as far as I can tell) is that for Windows and MacOS you can't install the docker daemon etc without installing Desktop.

I have a Mac for work and containers are a pain. I've tried Podman, UTM, colima, Docker Desktop etc and it all boils down to the same thing - run a linux VM and have the command line utils cooperate with the VM to run the containers.

It comes down to which solution has the least friction and irritations and Docker might still win there.

My current setup is UTM running a debian VM which I share my source directory with and ssh into to run docker. This is simpler for my brain to understand because the linux VM isn't a hidden component I forget to manage.

But it's not obvious how to mount the shared directory and I'm constantly running into networking problems - currently I cannot connect as myself and must sudo ssh for it to work. A reboot (of the Mac) used to fix it, but no longer does. I've given up trying to fix it and just sudo.