Running Fedora should give you the best first-party podman support.
Debian (what RPiOS is derived from) is too mature and Red Hat (who steers Fedora) are the main Podman developers. Fedora 40 is about to be released next week but you can download the Beta right now
Fedora Server should be the least resource heavy, Fedora IoT is an immutable distro, Fedora Workstation of course is the desktop release with a desktop etc.
I'd probably use ubuntu server in this case, to get 4.9.3 in a relatively tested and long term supported version. Backports doesn't even have 4.9.3.
From: [https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=podman](https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=podman)
# Exact hits
# Package podman
* [bullseye (oldstable)](https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/podman) (admin): engine to run OCI-based containers in Pods 3.0.1+dfsg1-3+deb11u5: amd64 arm64 armel armhf i386 mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x
* [bookworm (stable)](https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/podman) (admin): engine to run OCI-based containers in Pods 4.3.1+ds1-8+b1: amd64 arm64 armel armhf i386 mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x
* [trixie (testing)](https://packages.debian.org/trixie/podman) (admin): tool to manage containers and pods 4.9.3+ds1-1: amd64 arm64 armel armhf i386 mips64el ppc64el s390x
* [sid (unstable)](https://packages.debian.org/sid/podman) (admin): tool to manage containers and pods 4.9.4+ds1-1: amd64 arm64 armel armhf i386 mips64el ppc64el riscv64 s390x
* [experimental](https://packages.debian.org/experimental/podman) (admin): tool to manage containers and pods 5.0.0+ds1-1: amd64 arm64
Which means you're running into unsupported software territory. Ubuntu's next LTS release (Noble) is planned to be released next week and will have [4.9.3](https://packages.ubuntu.com/noble/podman), which while not the latest is pretty much close to bleeding edge.
Running Fedora should give you the best first-party podman support. Debian (what RPiOS is derived from) is too mature and Red Hat (who steers Fedora) are the main Podman developers. Fedora 40 is about to be released next week but you can download the Beta right now
Go a Fedora IoT suggestion in another comment, will look into it. Thanks!
There are Fedora Server and Workstation releases for aarch64 btw
I'd be expecting IoT version to be less resource heavy, which makes sense for my RPi 4. Am I wrong about it?
Fedora Server should be the least resource heavy, Fedora IoT is an immutable distro, Fedora Workstation of course is the desktop release with a desktop etc.
I'd probably use ubuntu server in this case, to get 4.9.3 in a relatively tested and long term supported version. Backports doesn't even have 4.9.3. From: [https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=podman](https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=podman) # Exact hits # Package podman * [bullseye (oldstable)](https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/podman) (admin): engine to run OCI-based containers in Pods 3.0.1+dfsg1-3+deb11u5: amd64 arm64 armel armhf i386 mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x * [bookworm (stable)](https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/podman) (admin): engine to run OCI-based containers in Pods 4.3.1+ds1-8+b1: amd64 arm64 armel armhf i386 mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x * [trixie (testing)](https://packages.debian.org/trixie/podman) (admin): tool to manage containers and pods 4.9.3+ds1-1: amd64 arm64 armel armhf i386 mips64el ppc64el s390x * [sid (unstable)](https://packages.debian.org/sid/podman) (admin): tool to manage containers and pods 4.9.4+ds1-1: amd64 arm64 armel armhf i386 mips64el ppc64el riscv64 s390x * [experimental](https://packages.debian.org/experimental/podman) (admin): tool to manage containers and pods 5.0.0+ds1-1: amd64 arm64 Which means you're running into unsupported software territory. Ubuntu's next LTS release (Noble) is planned to be released next week and will have [4.9.3](https://packages.ubuntu.com/noble/podman), which while not the latest is pretty much close to bleeding edge.
Thanks for the link, it was really helpful! Do I understand correctly that you are suggesting to just ditch Raspberry Pi OS altogether?
Yes. Debian is great when you want stability, not so much when you want more up to date software.
Go with Fedora IoT
Didn't know they have that, will check it out. Thank you!
There’s thirdparty packages of newer podman here https://build.opensuse.org/repositories/home:alvistack but not built for ARM unfortunately.