If you install the podman package via Scoop, you'll get a `podman` client shim, and then if you run `podman machine init` it'll automatically set up a WSL instance running Fedora with Podman set up and relay the necessary sockets for you so that running `podman ps` or whatever on Windows Just Works™.
Then if you want to can run `wsl -d podman-machine-default` to log into the distro as normal. You can also copy the distro, import/export/register it as usual if you want a clone unaffiliated with the podman package per se.
What the official Windows Podman installer, also official Podman Desktop that installs Podman and scoop's Podman package should really do is offer to integrate with your existing WSL2 distro like Docker Desktop does.
The way that Docker Desktop integrates is just one extra step away from `podman machine init`, since Docker Desktop just does the same socket relaying stuff for your existing WSL distros as it does for Windows. The actual Docker daemon only runs on the special distro that the tool (Docker Desktop or `podman machine` or whatever) sets up.
I assume that Podman Desktop does that but idk because I don't use it. Rancher Desktop also works this same way.
In all cases, the integration with existing distros happens inside the GUI app. Maybe I'll check tomorrow whether Podman Desktop offers comparable integration.
But yeah, it's a good integration to have because the native Windows CLI experience is still so impractical and clunky that many developers end up setting up a pet distro in WSL and pretty much living in it as their default terminal session. Good integration with cmd.exe or (pwsh.exe running under Windows Terminal, for that matter) is cool but it doesn't mean much to someone who does all their work in an Ubuntu WSL VM or whatever.
Personally I followed the rootfs way of installing Fedora to WSL2. It was simple enough and worked fine (including podman). I found no reason to use external tools / scripts / modified distros.
Sadly, some anti-cheat tools in games still refuse to work with WSL2 (they hate Hyper-V, I guess it's been used as attack vector), so back to VMware Player on my personal workstation and using terminal to open Linux shell.
I don't think GP was suggesting any official affiliation between Red Hat and canonical. I think they were making a point that there's a lot of potential users on Ubuntu who might switch to podman if it were available. When trying to establish a project, user acquisition is a critically important part.
I agree with them. I think Red Hat should be making effort to get podman working well in Ubuntu (well, Debian but would benefit Ubuntu). Although it's very possible that Red Hat is trying and have met resistance. Canonical wants for a very different direction and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were throwing road blocks in the way (or at least, doing nothing to remove the road blocks).
There's also Arch, or basically anything else besides Ubuntu. Podman isn't the only thing that is chronically out of date on it. Ubuntu has definitely lived long enough to become the villain.
I wonder why Fedora doesn't provide an official WSL package on the Microsoft Store as other distros do. My guess is that they feel that the WSL kernel and init diverge too far from the Fedora kernel and systemd. Can anyone from the Fedora project comment on this?
It's because Fedora strives to be open-source and free software only. WSL isn't completely libre so they can't support it officially and neither is the Windows Store. There's third party Fedora images for WSL you can install.
If you want to test podman you 'll have better luck using an OS from the Fedora ecosystem where Red Hat has affiliations and is actively contributing.
Since you mentioned Windows I 'd suggest trying something like this [1] or this [2]
[1]: https://github.com/yosukes-dev/FedoraWSL [2]: https://github.com/WhitewaterFoundry/Fedora-Remix-for-WSL
Disclaimer. I am not using Windows to test above solutions anymore. More than a year ago I used [2] but from a casual look maybe [1] is better now.