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

yeah thats what i said.

and that particular init process did way more than any init process ever should even before somebody had the bright idea to add "docker compose substitite" to its ever growing list of responsibilities.

you could put a word processor and games in their too if you really wanted. is that a good idea? ill leave that for the reader's judgment.



systemd just provides the feature to use a custom external application to configure a service based on a declarative spec, which podman uses to create actual systemd services from a declarative container spec.

From the podman docs:

> Podman supports building and starting containers (and creating volumes) via systemd by using a systemd generator.

Putting aside all the other issues one may have with systemd, this feels like a decent feature for a service manager to have (custom generation of service specifications).

> bright idea to add “Docker compose substitute”

Why is this so revolutionary? Docker-compose is just a service manager for containers. Systemd is a service manager. Systemd allowing podman to give it “container” features seems pretty reasonable.


> before somebody had the bright idea to add "docker compose substitite" to its ever growing list of responsibilities.

systemd itself isn’t acting as a docker-compose substitute. Podman simply translates unit files containing docker-esque configuration (image name, volumes, etc.) into plain systemd unit files that contain (among other things) an ExecStart line that starts the container with the proper arguments.




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

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

Search: