A copy or reference to the host OS source code.

Some kind of hot or live reloading mechanism when code changes.

Developer tooling (IDE's, text editors, linters, etc).

Your typical Docker development setup is usually as follows: Whereas Docker for Linux essentially has a direct line to the Host OS (and, by extension, the disk, network, GPU, etc), Docker for macOS has to go through several abstractions to do low-level tasks. It then can only access the kernel of that VM, which then has to go through the steps above to synchronize the disks of your Containers and the Host OS. Now, while it may be called Docker for macOS, it is architecturally different than Docker on Linux.Īs you can see above, instead of accessing the Host OS directly, Docker for macOS instead has to spin up its own Linux VM.

Have the Hypervisor synchronize changes between both.

Mount the disk from the Host OS on the Hypervisor.

For example, in order for a VM to read/write from your Host OS hard drive, it has to: VM's run an additional operating system on top of your Host Operating System, as well as an additional abstraction layer (called the Hypervisor) for the 'Guest OS' to talk to the Host OS.

Work as if you were directly on the Host OS.

it has direct access to the disk on the Host OS thanks to the kernel)

Mount the disk on the Container natively (i.e.

For example, in order for a Container to read/write from your Host OS hard drive, it has to: The difference comes in how this occurs.Īs you can see above, Containers make use of your Host OS and its kernel, and therefore are 'closer to the iron'. Generically speaking, both are similar in that you're running 'computers inside your computer'. Why is Docker for Mac a quantifiably worse experience than running Docker on a Linux machine? We'll explore the reasons in this post.įirst, a word on container architecture and how it differs from your standard Virtual Machine (VM). However, their counterpart developers on Linux simply go 🤷🏻‍♂️ and develop with no such problems.

We've all heard the jokes from practically anyone with their development environments on Docker for Mac: it makes your Mac sound like a jet plane at takeoff.

How to install docker on mac