Folks, I have a node.js script running on my Windows machine that uses the dockerode npm package to talk to docker on said box and starts and kills docker containers.

However, after the containers have been killed off, docker still holds on to the memory that it blocked for those containers and this means downstream processes fail due to lack of RAM.

To counter this, I have powershell scripts to start docker desktop and to kill docker desktop.

All of this is a horrid experience.

On my Mac, I just use Colima with Portainer and couldn’t be happier.

I’ve explored some options to replace Docker Desktop and it seems Rancher Desktop is a drop-in replacement for Docker Desktop, including the docker remote API.

  1. Is this true? Is Rancher Desktop that good of a drop-in replacement?
  2. Does Rancher Desktop better manage RAM for containers that have been killed off? Or does it do the same thing as Docker Desktop and hold on to the RAM?

Are there other options which I’m not thinking of which might solve my problems? I’ve seen a few alternatives but haven’t tried them yet - moby,
containerd,
podman

I don’t actually need the Docker Desktop interface. So pure CLI docker would also just work. How are you all running pure docker on Windows boxes?

  • @FooBarringtonEnglish
    1•1 year ago

    Is it pre installed nowadays? I rember having to go to some store and doing stuff to get it…

    It’s not pre-installed, but it’s checking one checkbox. Less work than deciding which VM provider to go with.

    Mounts and networks should be just checkboxes, dropdowns iirc.

    They should be, and yet I’ve rarely seen them work out like that. Usually I have to debug some issues and follow x StackOverflow responses which don’t work properly. Haven’t had any such issues with WSL2 yet.

    Terminals are probably better on linux anyway, if we really want the stone age windows tools we can always ssh into it from windows.

    … no. Windows Terminal integrates with WSL2 and allows you to open a terminal in Linux without having to set up anything inside of a good Terminal app in Windows. It’s what you’re asking for, but without any setup.

    I didnt really get the gui part, linux vm can have, and run GUIs

    Yes, but inside of a separate canvas. WSL2 GUI apps run as normal windows.

    all the intellij stuff are available for linux natively

    Okay, but I’ve tried running them in a VM and in WSL2. It is integrated the best if you run it under Windows and use the native WSL2 integration. Everything else degrades the experience.

    Even then iirc they can run with any linux remotely as well, just needs ssh

    Yes, and then you have to set everything up. With WSL2 in PyCharm I select “Use WSL2 Python”, it lists all the WSL2 Pythons, and I select the WSL2 Python I want. Is it really so difficult to understand that there is a difference between being able to do something and something just being available without setup?

    If you need it to run on windows like native apps, maybe use Xserver via ssh.

    Or I install WSL2 and skip all that.

    As far as quirks I read some comments in this thread about filesystem being too slow, maybe there are more.

    Yeah, you should read up on how WSL2 works. This is not an issue in any different way from VMs. WSL2 is a VM. It’s everything you’re asking for, but standardized, pre-installed and perfectly integrated. I don’t know why you’d recommend spending all those hours when it’s absolutely not necessary.

    It’s like telling a beginner “Yeah, do Linux From Scratch, Ubuntu is way too convenient”.