Docker on Apple M1

[ChaosAngel]

Anyone been testing the Docker Public Preview for Apple M1?

In my initial testing, everything appears to be working. However, Docker is VERY slow.

Example use case... I have a simple Jekyll build using the official image.

On my 16-inch MBP it completes in 299 seconds.
On my old 12-inch MB it completes in 630 seconds.

The MacBook Air running the M1 SoC completes in 615 seconds (only just beating the old Intel i7-7Y75).

By comparison, the same workload on my Razer Blade 15 Advanced running WSL 2 on Windows 10 completes in 84 seconds.

I'm assuming the following limitations:

1. Docker on M1 is pre-release (public preview), therefore likely not optimised for the new architecture.

2. The Apple Virtualisation Framework is very immature.

3. Although Docker supports multi-platform images, I suspect the majority are still built using the x86 architecture, therefore not native to the Apple M1.

Do others have the same experience?

 

[jdb8167]

Is it running in amd64 emulation? I wouldn’t expect too much overhead from the virtualization. The hypervisor framework has been around since before Catalina though Apple has added features but it is not new.

 

[redcaptrickster]

I’ve been using it without issues. No discernible slowdown for me.

 

[Gnattu]

The Apple Virtualisation Framework is very immature.

This framework uses Hypervisor.framework as backed, which is introduced 6 years ago. This can be used for both Intel and Apple silicon macs.

 

[Gnattu]

Although Docker supports multi-platform images, I suspect the majority are still built using the x86 architecture, therefore not native to the Apple M1.

This is easy to verify. It looks like jekyll/jekyll does not have any arm64 images published. I am surprised that it is even running in the first place. Because it does not work on arm64 linux

 

[bill-p]

In my initial testing, everything appears to be working. However, Docker is VERY slow.

I suspect it's because of this:

Docker Desktop ships with hypervisors for the host OS. The hypervisor is responsible for running a lightweight Linux kernel (LinuxKit), which is included as part of Docker Desktop. This fast and lightweight container OS comes packaged with the QEMU emulator, and comes pre-configured with binfmt_misc to run binaries of any supported architecture.

...that was from the link that you provided.

So perhaps x86/x86-64 images are being ran through QEMU's emulation code, which would explain the slow performance.

P.S.: I found this:

GitHub - Blafy/jekyll-docker-arm: ARM builds of https://github.com/envygeeks/jekyll-docker

ARM builds of https://github.com/envygeeks/jekyll-docker - Blafy/jekyll-docker-arm

github.com

Not sure if it's usable, but may be worth a try?

 

[Gnattu]

So perhaps x86/x86-64 images are being ran through QEMU's emulation code, which would explain the slow performance.

If they just blindly calling qemu-system-x86_64 on an Apple Silicon Mac, then it will use emulation mode to fake an x86 CPU using a software because hvf is not available for x86_64 on Apple Silicon Macs, and this will be very slow. If this i the case I hope this mode should be disabled as default because this will cause so much confusion in the first places as we are transparently using a very slow compatibility mode.