Elixir & Docker & Windows

Perhaps I need to throw resources at the Docker Hyper-V VM…

The Hyper-V based docker brought nothing but trouble to my system, it often doenied to start because it had not enough memory available (it was configured to use 1GiB, which is the minimum; I had 6 GiB available at the moment of trying to start it). If it was able to start, it consumed the full GiB at once, always, even when not used. Also it was slow and I had trouble to use volumes.

Not to say, that I were unable to use Virtual Box side by side…

So I switched back to Docker Toolbox and will stay there for the time beeing.

It uses a Virtual Boxed linux as host for docker. This does use only as much RAM as is needed, using volumes is straighforward, it works fast (enough), and I do get the nice Kitematic tool which I really miss on Linux…

Last but not least, I have to say, that I have moved my complete working set up into a Linux VM instead of working on the wiondows host, just because I miss to much of the nice stuff linux gives me.

I decided to ditch Docker for the time being, and run “natively” on WSL.

10 days into developing on Windows, and I must say I am really underwhelmed.

Suspect Docker & Windows (i.e. WSL) share 50% of blame.

But, I am prepared to give Windows time and a reasonable judgement. We’ll see…

I tried it. I tried really hard, but since there came the point were I had to set up the VM at office anyway for some native Linux hacking, I moved everything. Only thing I left on the host was steam…

The funniest thing is, that I can work around nearly everything on windows and find my way to get something done, but what really annoyes me is the handling of deadkeys… And the missing keyboard layer…

Huh? What is be?

Pretty basically, after being pretty deep into Docker at one point, I find the VM they create on Docker for Windows to be literally the worst possible way of doing it.

Like @NobbZ said, it’s a static memory allocation on a distro that supports Hyper-V dynamic memory allocation. But they also don’t give you any access to the machine and then they convince you to switch to it.

I personally use Windows for 90% of my development, dropping into the WSL or a docker machine for the other stuff. But it’s not for everybody.

I would give the same recommendation as @Nobbz use Docker Toolbox if you want a decent experience of Docker on Windows.

On Windows AltGr + anything does nearly nothing. On linux there happens a lot, e.g. AltGr+. is …, while AltGr+v/b/n is „, “, ” respectively.

Tick (´) and Backtick (`) (and other dead keys) appear once after I hit them twice on linux while they appear twice on windows. This is plain anoying to have to constantly do ``BackSpace on windows.

Most of my coworkers don’t even realize or care how annoying this is, because its the only way they know, but as I am more used to the linux way, I do realize and I do care…

PS: You can often check if a post I made was from windows or linux box by checking ellipses (…), if they are a single character I was on linux, if they are three separate dots (... vs …) I was on windows…