Need to build and run a Docker image but don't have root access? No problem with Apptainer!
My group is moving towards a working paradigm where each project has a Docker image. This helps keep control of the environments for each project, as you know that operating systems and programming languages like R and Python undergo regular upgrades, which are mostly undesirable for long running data analytics projects. For example in the field of biomedical genomics, some projects can take up to 10 years between initiation and final publication, so having a stable and portable computing environment is crucial. While this solution is fantastic if you have a workstation where you have free reign to use root/sudo permissions, many data analysts are restricted to using shared computing resources without root. There are some ways to mitigate these restrictions. One approach is to make a Docker image on another computer and use Singularity or Udocker to pull and convert it to be run by non-root user. But sometimes, users don't have access to another computer to build these images. Op