If you've got arm64 images, it works great. If you have x86_64 images, it probably still works, but it's not a guarantee - we definitely have images at my workplace which do not work emulated - and it's substantially slower than on an x86 machine. On top of it being slower anyway, since Docker for Mac is running the daemon in a VM.
I'm really happy the M1/M2 exists, and I have access to an M1 MBP, but I'd still rather have a nice Linux laptop. Especially for containers.
Edit: One severe (to me) incompatibility I ran into with the M1 MBP is that it would not run my dual monitors (dell, displayport) through either of the TB3 docks (belkin, caldigit) I had available. I ended up replacing the monitors. Worked fine with the x86 MBP.
Regarding ARM docker images, can't you just update them to support ARM same as any non-Docker software you use?
Regarding Docker on Mac I totally agree. It's not worth it. At my workplace we simply run everything natively. We have to use Macs because we do iOS dev, but if we didn't then I'd definitely be tempted to get a linux laptop. May stick Asahi on my machine once the GPU support is ready.
Only if the software is published for ARM. See my other reply in this thread - you may be stuck using some older software that was never published for ARM, so while you can get it working, it may be on you to backport fixes and compile packages to build a new image yourself.
It can absolutely be done, though. It's just not necessarily as simple as "install the ARM one".
Yep. A lot of times, your legacy test suite will depend on some obscure Oracle Docker image that hasn't been updated since the late 'oughts, and unless you get it running then your tests won't run. On x86, this really isn't a problem. On Linux, you don't even need QEMU to get things working.
I wish this world was friendlier to the RISC ISAs of the world, but CISC supremacy is still real, and can hurt you.
More seriously, it wouldn't surprise me that there is a fair bit of software out there that is written with assembly or x86 intrinsics which isn't worth the time porting, especially if you're not going to deploy on ARM.
CalDigit support told me that it happened on the M1 Pro systems if the make/model of the monitors was identical, but I don't think that's true, because I replaced two identical monitors with two newer identical monitors and both of those work through a CalDigit TS3+.
I'm really happy the M1/M2 exists, and I have access to an M1 MBP, but I'd still rather have a nice Linux laptop. Especially for containers.
Edit: One severe (to me) incompatibility I ran into with the M1 MBP is that it would not run my dual monitors (dell, displayport) through either of the TB3 docks (belkin, caldigit) I had available. I ended up replacing the monitors. Worked fine with the x86 MBP.