I installed a few different distros, landed on Cinnamon Mint. I’m not a tech dummy, but I feel I’m in over my head.
I installed Docker in the terminal (two things I’m not familiar with) but I can’t find it anywhere. Googled some stuff, tried to run stuff, and… I dunno.
I’m TRYING to learn docker so I can set up audiobookshelf and Sonarr with Sabnzbd.
Once it’s installed in the terminal, how the hell do I find docker so I can start playing with it?
Is there a Linux for people who are deeply entrenched in how Windows works? I’m not above googling command lines that I can copy and paste but I’ve spent HOURS trying to figure this out and have gotten no where…
Thanks! Sorry if this is the wrong place for this
EDIT : holy moly. I posted this and went to bed. Didn’t quite realize the hornets nest I was going to kick. THANK YOU to everyone who has and is about to comment. It tells you how much traction I usually get because I usually answer every response on lemmy and the former. For this one I don’t think I’ll be able to do it.
I’ve got a few little ones so time to sit and work on this is tough (thus 5h last night after they were in bed) but I’m going to start picking at all your suggestions (and anyone else who contributes as well)
Thank you so much everyone! I think windows has taught me to be very visually reliant and yelling into the abyss that is the terminal is a whole different beast - but I’m willing to give it a go!
Docker is a cli only app, if you want a gui interface check out docker desktop
This is probably what OP wants. A gui
A GUI isn’t going to help, mon capitaine. Start-stop is the easy part, OP will still need to create a docker-compose.yml and a systemd unit.
The OP wants a LLM to walk him through the process and generate all of the relevant files. If they entered 2-3 prompts into gemini/chatgpt they wouldn’t have needed this thread.
Most docker releases I have seen include a template yml
Once it’s installed in the terminal, how the hell do I find docker so I can start playing with it?
Type
docker
in the terminal, it’s a CLI application.But it sounds like you might want to install Docker Desktop, which does give you a GUI to use.
To be fair, you’re taking on a lot of new things at once. You can spin up docker containers on windows too, all while using a UI. I think it’s great your exposing yourself to self hosting, linux, command line interface, and containerization all at once, but don’t beat yourself up for it taking longer than expected. A lot of it takes time. I encourage you to keep trying and playing. Good luck!
There is docker desktop on Linux too.
sudo apt install docker flatpak -y # add flathub if not already there flatpak install docker
Edit: please use Podman. And if you think about Virtualbox, please use Virt-manager instead. Both are RedHat products and they are pretty awesome. Podman is more secure and works well for your job, it is letter-for-letter compatible with docker. You can use podman-compose if you need) but that requires to run a daemon which is also possible.
You can use Podman with many container sources natively, while docker only allows dockerhub. Says enough.
Not recommended as for one it is proprietary and two its more confusing to have tons of buttons than it is to write a docker compose.
I mean I would recommend them to use Podman. Docker on Linux Mint was a mess last time I used it.
Why?
It seems like podman would be way harder as you need to configure systemd and manage containers yourself.
With docker compose you apply it and docker creates the containers you need.
I can at least assure you that as a developer, docker is annoying to set up and their documentation is confusing.
Most things in Linux are easier to set up but sometimes installing things happens to be harder than it should be and docker is one of them.
You should keep in mind that compared to other OSs, a lot of Linux software is CLI only, so they won’t always show up in the applications list and you’ll need to check if you have it in a terminal.
Docker is one of the container technologies
Containers vs Images
This is a very simplified explanation, which hopefully clears up for you. As with all simplifications, they aren’t entirely correct.
Containers put processes, files, and networking into a space where they are secluded from the rest. You main OS is called the host and the container is called the guest. You can selectively share resources with the guest. To use an analogy, if you house were the computer with linux, if you took a room, put tools and resources for those tools into it, put workers into it, got them to start working and locked the door, they’d be contained in the room, unable to break out. If you want to give workers access to resources, you either a window, a corridor, or even a door depending on much access you want to give them.
Containers are created from an image. Think of it as the tools, resources, and configuration required every time you create a room in your house for workers to do a job. The woodworkers will need different tools and resources than say metalworkers.
Most images are stored on DockerHub. So when you do
docker pull linuxserver/sonarr
you download the image. When you dodocker run linuxserver/sonarr
you create a container from an image.Installation
You’re on Cinnamon Mint which is linux distribution derived from another linux distribution called debian. You have to follow the installation instructions. Everything is there. If something doesn’t work, it’s most likely because you skipped a step. The most important ones are the post-installation steps:
- Adding your user to the docker group
- Logging out and back in (or simply restarting)
Those are the most commonly missed steps. I’ve fallen for this trap too!
Local help
To use linux, you need to learn about ways to help yourself or find help. On linux, most well-written programs print a help. Simply running the command without any arguments most often output a help text --> running
docker
does so. If they don’t, then the--help
flag often does -->docker --help
. The shorthand is-h
-->docker -h
.Some commands have sub commands e.g
docker run
,docker image
,docker ps
, … . Those subcommands also take flags of which-h
and--help
are available.The help output is often not extensive and programs often have a manual. To access it the command is
man
-->man find
will output the manual for thefind
command. Docker doesn’t have a local manual but an online one.For clarification when running a command there are different ways to interpret the text after the command:
Flags/Options
These are named parameters to the command. Some do not take input like
-h
and--help
which are called flags. Some do like--file /etc/passwd
and are often called options.Arguments
These are unnamed parameters and each command interprets them differently.
echo "hello world"
-->echo
is the command and"hello world"
is the argument. Some commands can take multiple argumentsRunning containers
Imperatively
As described above
docker run linuxserver/sonarr
runs an image in a container. However, it runs in the foreground (as opposed to the background in what is most often called a “daemon”). Starting in the foreground is most likely not how you want to run things as that means if you close your terminal, you end the process too. To run something in the background, you usedocker run --detatch linuxserver/sonarr
.You can pass options like
-v
or--volume
to make a file or folder from your host system available in the guest e.g-v /path/on/host:/tmp/path/in/guest
. Or-p
/--port
to forward a host port to a guest port e.g-p 8080:80
. That means if you access port8080
on your host, the traffic will be forwarded to port80
in the guest.These are imperatives as in you command the computer to do a specific action. Run that docker image, stop that docker container, restart these containers, start a container with this port forward and that volume with this user …
Declaratively
If you don’t want to keep typing the same commands, you can declare everything about your containers up front. Their volumes, ports, environment variables, which image is used, which network card/interface they have access to, which other network they share with other containers, and so on.
This is done with
docker-compose
ordocker compose
for newer docker versions (not all operating systems have the new docker version).This already a long text, so if you want to know more, the best resource is the docker compose manual and the compose file reference.
Hopefully this helped with the basics and understanding what you’re doing. There are probably great video resources out there that explain it more didactically than I do with steps you can follow along.
Good luck!
how the hell do I find docker
Type “docker” in terminal and hit enter. Since it’s installed, your system will likely recognize it as a command and populate a help menu for you. You’ll want to visit docker’s website for a full manual.
Once it’s installed in the terminal, how the hell do I find docker so I can start playing with it?
It’s not installed “in the terminal.” It’s installed on the computer; the terminal is just one way you might interact with it.
In particular, docker is a type of program called a ‘daemon’ or ‘server’: it runs in the background and doesn’t have an interface, per se. You can run docker commands and get their output, and you can of course interact with the services you’re using docker to run, but there is no “docker app” that runs as a foreground interactive process (either GUI app or ncurses terminal app).
Keep in mind that you’re not just learning to use linux, but also learning to use docker,and docker is a complex tool by itself, which makes your journey significantly harder.
I never user Sabnzbd so I wouldn’t be of much help. However, you could post some of the problems you find, so that other people lay help you.
The crazy pills are the first step in learning. Embrace the crazy. Take more pills.
Which pills would you recommend?
Estrogen? It works for my girlfriend and her Linux shenanigans!
Damn, I’ll have to try it out!
Linux is a slightly different way of thinking. There are any number of ways that you can solve any problem you have. In Windows there are usually only one or two that work. This is largely a result of the hacker mentality from which linux and Unix came from. “If you don’t like how it works, rewrite it your way” and “Read the F***ing Manual” were frequent refrains when I started playing with linux.
Mint is a fine distro which is based off of Ubuntu, if I remember correctly. Most documentation that applies to Ubuntu will also apply to you.
Not sure what exactly you installed, but I’m guessing that you did something along the lines of
sudo apt-get install docker
.If you did that without doing anything ahead of time, what you probably got was a slightly out of date version of docker only from Mint’s repositories. Follow the instructions here to uninstall whatever you installed and install docker from docker’s own repositories.
The Docker Desktop that you may be used to from Windows is available for linux, however it is not part of the default install usually. You might look at this documentation.
I don’t use it, as I prefer ctop combined with docker-compose.
Towards that end, here is my
docker-compose.yaml
for my instance of Audiobookshelf. I have it connected to my Tailscale tailnet, but if you comment out the tailscale service stuff and uncomment the port section in the audiobookshelf service, you can run it directly. Assuming your not making any changes,Create a directory somewhere,
mkdir ~/docker
mkdir ~/docker/audiobookshelf
This creates a directory in your home directory called docker and then a directory within that one called audiobookshelf. Now we want to enter that directory.
cd ~/docker/audiobookshelf
Then create your docker compose file
touch docker-compose.yaml
You can edit this file with whatever text editor you like, but I prefer micro which you may not have installed.
micro docker-compose.yaml
and then paste the contents into the file and change whatever setting you need to for your system. At a minimum you will need to change the volumes section so that the podcast and audiobook paths point to the correct location on your system. it follows the format
<system path>:<container path>
.Once you’ve made all the needed changes, save and exit the editor and start the the instance by typing
sudo docker compose up -d
Now, add the service directly to your tailnet by opening a shell in the tailscale container
sudo docker exec -it audiobookshelf-tailscale /bin/sh
and then typing
tailscale up
copy the link it gives you into your browser to authenticate the instance. Assuming that neither you or I made any typos you should now be able to access audiobookshelf from http://books If you chose to comment out all the tailscale stuff you would find it at http://localhost:13378
docker-compose.yaml
version: "3.7" services: tailscale: container_name: audiobookshelf-tailscale hostname: books # This will become the tailscale device name image: ghcr.io/tailscale/tailscale:latest volumes: - "./tailscale_var_lib:/var/lib" # State data will be stored in this directory - "/dev/net/tun:/dev/net/tun" # Required for tailscale to work cap_add: # Required for tailscale to work - net_admin - sys_module command: tailscaled restart: unless-stopped audiobookshelf: container_name: audiobookshelf image: ghcr.io/advplyr/audiobookshelf:latest restart: unless-stopped # ports: # Not needed due to tailscale # - 13378:80 volumes: - '/mnt/nas/old_media_server/media/books/Audio Books:/audiobooks' # This line has quotes because there is a space that needed to be escaped. - /mnt/nas/old_media_server/media/podcasts:/podcasts # See, no quotes needed here, better to have them though. - /opt/audiobookshelf/config:/config # I store my docker services in the /opt directory. You may want to change this to './config' and './metadata' while your playing around - /opt/audiobookshelf/metadata:/metadata network_mode: service:tailscale # This line tells the audiobookshelf container to send all traffic to tailscale container
I’ve left my docker-compose file as-is so you can see how it works in my setup.
👆
And that is why Linux mass adoption is never coming.
Getting this setup on Windows would be even harder because it would involve installing docker manually or setting up WSL and following these steps. What OP is trying to do is a complex thing that most people don’t need, that would be the same as saying Windows is hard because setting up a VM with hardware passthrough is difficult on Windows, completely missing the point that that is a complex thing to do and that it’s complex on any other OS as well.
Yeah but the difference is that even for simple things, Linux instructions look like what was posted by the person I replied to.
Being a person who replies to lots of new users questions I strongly disagree. 99% of the questions come from a Windows mindset, so it requires some deconstruction of the way the person is thinking, have you noticed how very few Mac users ask beginner questions on Linux forums?
There’s a big difference between something is different and someone is used to doing the things differently, driving on the left or right is just as difficult, bit if you’ve driven all of your life one way switching up can be difficult. Just like that a lot of Linux concepts are different from what people are used to if they come from a Windows background, but the same is true the other way around. As someone who’s been using Linux for decades I find windows weird and convoluted, but I know that this is just my perception, and that someone who’s using it daily is used to that.
Edit: if you’re going to reply to this, mind providing an example of something you think is easy on Windows but hard on Linux?
Just to be clear, I agree with you practically 100%, and you can see my response to this person in the same thread as well, but I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. I’ll give you a few examples of things that are easier on Windows (and most also are easier on MacOS) than they are on Linux (or at least some distros depending on which you pick):
- Using proprietary multimedia codecs (Fedora)
- Installing Nvidia drivers that have the capability of auto-updating (any distro that doesn’t have a GUI for driver downloads)
- Installation (most people simply use the pre-installed OS and never reinstall or install anything new)
- Game compatibility (Linux gaming is great, but there are still major titles not supported)
- Accessing firmware settings and profiles for laptops while booted (like Armoury Crate for Asus laptops (yes, I know about rog-control-center and asusctl, but those don’t work for all devices, and are harder to set up))
There are probably plenty more, and there are things that are easier on Linux. But again, I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. Each of those examples are less intuitive to complete on Linux (or at least some distros) than they are in Windows. As someone who has been using Linux for a decade, I don’t think that they are all hard, but many are also less intuitive in Linux than MacOS, just to address your first point. When you have to start adding PPAs/repos to get specific things, I’d argue that’s objectively less intuitive than the alternatives in other operating systems, and not merely a different way of thinking. In many cases though, for most things, there are intuitive solutions that exist in Linux. There are plenty of cases where someone overcomplicates something they want to do in Linux by using a Windows mindset, so I still agree with you there. I just think it’s a little more nuanced than you seemed to imply.
I had written a more thorough response, but the app crashed and I lost it. Sorry of this one sounds a bit harsh, I do mostly agree with you, I just think that the examples you’ve chosen are bad because they’re either distro specific (so not a Linux problem but a problem with that distro), or not Linux problems (i.e. there’s nothing Linux can do about it because the problem doesn’t lie on Linux but elsewhere)
Using proprietary multimedia codecs (Fedora)
Distro specific. It should be just like installing anything else, and it is for some distros, certainty for the ones I’ve been using.
Installing Nvidia drivers that have the capability of auto-updating (any distro that doesn’t have a GUI for driver downloads)
Distro specific, I’ve had NVIDIA drivers auto-updating for the past 15 years or so, long before Windows had that same capabilities. And it updates with my regular system update, no need to use any special GUI for it.
Installation (most people simply use the pre-installed OS and never reinstall or install anything new)
Not Linux problem. Also, while I can see the argument that’s easier to use what’s already installed, that tells you nothing of how easy one thing is in comparison to the other. If computers came with the most convolutedly complex and unusable crap of an OS, full of bloatware and spyware pre-installed people would still use it. Not to mention that the Linux installation process was much easier than Windows for the longest time (until windows finally implemented automatic driver installation)
Game compatibility (Linux gaming is great, but there are still major titles not supported)
Not Linux problem. Although this is something to bear in mind while choosing your OS, it’s the companies that make games that are at fault here, there’s nothing Linux can do to remedy this situation, so it’s unfair to judge it for it. That’s like saying Windows is harder to use because running docker containers in it is impossible without some virtualisation, while this is something to consider when deciding what OS will you use to self-host, it’s not per-se a reason why Windows is more difficult to use.
Accessing firmware settings and profiles for laptops while booted (like Armoury Crate for Asus laptops (yes, I know about rog-control-center and asusctl, but those don’t work for all devices, and are harder to set up))
Same as above.
Like I said, I agree with lots of what you said, and some of those are thing to keep in mind when choosing an OS, but those are not good arguments as for which OS is simpler than the other. The Linux way to do most of them is using the package manager, and that’s much simpler than searching the internet for the correct download.
The greatest contribution of Nvidia to FOSS had been to keep many such thinking people hostage to proprietary solutions and out of our visibility.
You know, those that refuse to learn anything new, refuse to read documents, believe that by controlling input/output through terminal is inferior to gui-blindness.
podman is better but thats just my opinion btw