Podman

Podman runs the local databases and services in containers. It needs podman-compose 1.6.0 or newer; older releases can hang on start-up.

Install

Skip to Configure if both commands answer and the second names podman-compose 1.6.0 or newer. An installed docker-compose takes precedence over podman-compose.

podman --version
podman compose version

The distribution's podman-compose is too old; use pipx:

sudo apt install -y podman pipx
pipx install podman-compose
pipx ensurepath
exec "$SHELL"

Configure

Linux needs nothing started. Under WSL2, health checks need systemd. This command prints systemd when systemd runs:

ps -p 1 -o comm=

Otherwise, turn it on, then restart WSL from Windows with wsl --shutdown:

printf '[boot]\nsystemd=true\n' | sudo tee -a /etc/wsl.conf

Check that Podman runs:

podman info --format '{{.Version.Version}}'

An error means Podman or its machine is down.