A really great container solution is Podman and Linux. If macOS wanted to provide namespaces they could have done so, but to get the native container experience and a truly open source operating system just use Linux.
> If macOS wanted to provide namespaces they could have done so, to get the native container experience and a truly open source operating system just use Linux.
I am not too sure why this needed to turn into a dig on MacOS. I think a tool like Finch, Lima, Docker, etc. that further helps Linux be highly portable as a container environment highlights the strength of Linux as a portable runtime on every platform.
To flip it around, one could lament how Linux lacks a unified desktop experience compared to MacOS, which makes it even more difficult to use desktop Linux in the enterprise in contrast to Windows and MacOS.
Why not celebrate that containerized Linux will be even more accessible to another platform instead of turning this into a dig at another -- more widely used -- desktop OS in the enterprise? Some people/environments just can't or have not yet made the investment into desktop Linux.
(I'm a daily desktop NixOS and Arch user)
Wouldn't having multiple competing open source window managers be considered a good thing? I'm not sure what you mean by unified desktop experience as well, can you clarify specifically what that means to you? Do you mean like why don't all Linux desktop apps use GTK3 or Qt? Or why don't all Linux desktops use Gnome or KDE?
I do celebrate that Docker, Podman, Colima advance container solutions and increase exposure to Linux for server apps. My point being though is that if the point of Finch or Colima is to get a slight increase in performance in an already non-native VM experience then IMO the time would be better utilized either forcing Mac to implement native namespace and kernel-level support for containers or to adopt a native backed for containers. I can't tell you how many times I've seen developers implement poor practices coming from non-native development workstations because to them what does it matter if your container is a bit slower if they already are used to subpar performance and functionality.
I absolutely love this about Linux. However, I think this freedom of choice leads to difficulty of use in the enterprise.
> I'm not sure what you mean by unified desktop experience as well, can you clarify specifically what that means to you?
So one example that comes to mind for me as I am a security engineer is desktop-specific security software (and let me again emphasize I am talking about desktop). For example, on MacOS you have a myriad of effective desktop security tools that predictably work on the platform once it is released. Patrick Wardle's open source Objective See tooling[1] is the best example I can think of, Little Snitch[2] is another one that comes to mind.
As a thought exercise imagine you were to implement a Linux alternative to KnockKnock[3], which enumerates what applications will run at startup to help identify persistently installed malware. How would you do this on Linux? Monitor ~/.config/autostart, crontab, systemd? What if they have a non-systemd system, what if they are using i3 and starting applications in their i3 config, if you want notifications what notification daemon/client do you implement? The list goes on and on as there are a million different variables.
Another example I don't think can exist on Linux is an alternative to one of my favorite MacOS apps named Secretive[4], which allows you to store secure non-retrievable SSH keys in the Mac's secure enclave. Apple has a bit of an unfair advantage as they control the hardware and software that allows users to access the secure enclave -- but on Linux we don't really even have a uniform way to store credentials on the software side that a security vendor could reliably count on: we can use gnome-keyring, KDE's competitor, pass, gnupg, etc.
I am not saying these problems are insurmountable, but I think that if a security vendor were to target desktop Linux in addition to Windows and MacOS they would almost HAVE TO limit the scope to something like a default Ubuntu desktop LTS running GNOME as the DE (or something similar) so they could reliably reproduce results.
And I am not saying that this means desktop Linux shouldn't be used for work -- I exclusively work from my NixOS machine for my day job. But I have compassion for the IT org or product vendor who can't support desktop Linux in the enterprise -- Linux is kind of the wild, wild west on the desktop.
I hope one day we see a large-scale standard adopted by enterprise (i.e. Ubuntu LTS as the distro, GNOME as the DE, etc.) for desktop Linux just so it was more reasonable of an option in the enterprise. And to be clear, I don't mean that I hope choices for Linux go away, I love the amount of choice you have on Linux. But it can be a great weakness if you want standardized desktop builds.
[1] https://objective-see.org/tools.html
[2] https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html