I feel like I'm taking crazy pills

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!

CrabAndBroom,

TBH I’ve been using Linux for over a decade, can install & set up Arch from scratch etc. and I still don’t understand Docker.

jackpot,
@jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

podman is better but thats just my opinion btw

ikidd,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

OP is having trouble with the oldest and most highly documented container system in existence. I don’t think throwing the almost invisible podman into the mix would help anything in the least.

possiblylinux127,

I think it will be easier to use docker compose with a premade docker compose file.

Create a new directory cd into it and then nano docker-compose.yaml. For instance, here is a docker compose I found one the audio bookshelf website:


<span style="color:#323232;">version: "3.7"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">  services: 
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    audiobookshelf:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      image: ghcr.io/advplyr/audiobookshelf:latest
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      ports: - 13378:80
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      volumes:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        - </path/to/audiobooks>:/audiobooks
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        - </path/to/podcasts>:/podcasts - </path/to/config>:/config
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        - </path/to/metadata>:/metadata
</span>

www.audiobookshelf.org/docs/#docker-compose-insta…

Secret300,

I don’t mean to be that guy but like did you even read a basic tutorial? Or did it install and the docker commands aren’t working still?

delirious_owl,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

rtft

jjlinux,

I strongly suggest that you install portainer if this is your first time playing with docker.

It’ll make your life and learning curve dramatically easier.

I’m not suggesting you dont learn how to do it all over CLI (I actually think CLI is way easier and faster to deploy once you get the hang of it), but if you’re looking to deploy something right away, I believe portainer is your best bet.

deezbutts,

This. I had the same issue, and just about every tutorial focuses on the command line, and I get why… It’s way more powerful and actually becomes the standard that people who are using docker repeatedly would need to learn.

That being said, this was my first foray into containerizing things since VMware became a thing. So I needed a UI that felt familiar and helped me understand some of the Dockers specific settings and configurations. This was a godsend in helping me get things up and running, and then later I had to learn how to do it properly with docker compose.

For what it’s worth, I still keep my portainer instance running, and use it for some administration stuff like resets, but I think it helps smooth my learning curve. Docker via the command line exclusively pretty much requires you to understand all of the notions and concepts involved.

jjlinux,

That’s exactly right. I run UnRaid as my NAS, and not a single docker has been installed from their app store. I also still have Portainer running (at this point I have no idea why anymore, since I haven’t used it in over a year) and it barely uses any resources. Portainer was my first shot at docker containers, and I’ll always be grateful to the developers. I doubt I would have continued learning Docker if Portainer had not existed.

electric_nan,

Docker’s hard. I never really got my head around it. I used “Swizzin Community Edition” to setup my media server. It was really easy compared to Docker-based solutions.

sibloure,

There is lazydocker which gives a visual interface to docker in the terminal window. May be worth looking into.

julianh, (edited )

Docker is a developer* tool, not really something you should be using without some technical knowledge, or at least some experience in the terminal. It’s purely a terminal application, so you just type “docker” in the terminal to use it. You can also type “man docker” to view the manual (which shows arguments and command you can use) but again, that won’t help much without some prior knowledge.

The things you’re trying to use look like self-hosted web servers, which is a lot to set up for someone who’s new to the terminal. I won’t stop you if you want, but be warned. I’d recommend using something simpler like cozy, which you should be able to find and download in the software store.

*Edit: it’s not only a developer tool, it’s used for deployment as well. I lumped the two together. It’s still a tool made for people with more familiarity using the terminal though.

atzanteol,

Docker is a developer tool

First, it’s not. Second - so what if it is? Sounds like gatekeeping to me. They’ve expressed interest in learning how to use it, that’s enough.

julianh,

If they want to use it that’s fine. I’m just cautioning against using a command line tool like that until they feel somewhat comfortable with the terminal.

atzanteol,

The terminal is not some arcane source of dark power to be feared. It’s one of the defining characteristics of the Linux ecosystem. Anybody looking to use Linux should be expecting to use it and tools that are built for it.

It’s not like they could even really do any damage with docker either.

Coreidan,

Docker is a deployment tool. Not a developer tool.

Unless you’re trying to simplify your deployment stack there isn’t really a compelling reason to install it unless you’re trying to learn something new for the fun of it.

With that said you need things to deploy to make it useful. Like a database server, web server, etc.

Presi300,
@Presi300@lemmy.world avatar

AI can be of great help when learning docker, as it is genuinely super confusing. You don’t “find” docker, it’s a terminal program that you interact with… From the terminal.

I’m gonna get A LOT of hate for this, but check out Warp terminal. It has a really nice GUI for configuration and really nice autocomplete for commands.

llii,

Why should you get hate for the warp terminal? I’ve never used it but it looks quite nice.

Adanisi,
@Adanisi@lemmy.zip avatar

Because it requires you to sign in with the cloud and bloated

llii,

Oh, that’s a no from me then.

Presi300,
@Presi300@lemmy.world avatar

Because it’s closed source and requires a sign in. Imo worth it, as it’s a very nice terminal.

chepycou,
@chepycou@rcsocial.net avatar

@llii @Presi300 It was made for apple users and evidently so (it's basically and but closed source, cloud-based and with some AI bullcrap on top of it)

Presi300,
@Presi300@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, you can call literally any more advanced terminal “alacritty with tmux”, but I don’t think that’s fair. And I for one find Warp’s AI features fairly useful. It’s also as I mentioned above got a really nice autocomplete and configuration UI. (It’s autocomplete is an absolute godsent when it comes to dealing with docker…)

tehbilly,

I would enjoy training a LLM on my aggregated command history and using that for auto completion, or maybe using an open source one trained on a larger set from the community, but I am very uncomfortable sending data about every command (as I’m writing it!) to any company.

llii,

Ok, this isn’t for me than.

phanto,

I have been in and out of Linux for years and Docker is just… Hard. There’s a thing called portainer, and it makes it so you can muck with Docker from a web browser, and that is literally all I know at this point. Still, might be helpful? I have some Docker stuff, and it works the way I assume my mom thinks Linux works. Someone typed fast and magic happened. Best of luck!

SeaMauFive,

Honestly, for those tools, I’d recommend posting in piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com.

Echoing some other comments, those are decently complex tools all around. I’d recommend doing a few tutorials on docker before trying out that project (short ones, just to build a mental model).

As others have said, docker is a command line tool. docker -v in your terminal should be enough to “find” it. That’ll show you the version of docker you have installed.

From there, I’d recommend the hello world image to start (this should get you there www.geeksforgeeks.org/docker-hello-world/).

From there, keep messing with it. Get more familiar with docker through their docs. Read a bit on images vs containers, port mapping, and volumes and mounts.

As others have said, look for docker only in the terminal. And then expect to spend a little time familiarizing yourself with what problem docker solves and how it solves it. Once you’ve got docker in your back pocket, you’ll be very well situated to set up all kinds of apps.

And when you run into other problems, there’s communities to answer and work through the issues

Thcdenton,

Docker is a pain in the dick

jjlinux,

Only for people that dont understand the basics

scratchandgame,

Is there a Linux for people who are deeply entrenched in how Windows works

How Windows works is different I think?

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…

You don’t need.

I heard you are using a debian-based distro, can you read the man pages for apt?

Then use apt to find docker, and get it.

Once it’s installed in the terminal, how the hell do I find docker so I can start playing with it?

It is not installed in the terminal. It is installed on the system, ON DISK!

docker should be installed on /usr/bin. It is on PATH. Type docker and see what happen. If not, try searching on /usr/bin (on BSDs third party software are separated from base, so docker should be installed on /usr/local/bin)

And the docker service should be started, if not. Use the fucking systemctl to start it. The service name should be docker, if I recall correctly

N0x0n, (edited )

Been there, now I have over 12 containers running h24 on an old spare laptop with everything exposed via traefik (reverse proxy), self-signed CA, local DNS… what a ride ^^'.

The best advice and thats what helped me to get going, is to watch/follow some youtube videos about docker and how to expose your first container locally, so you get the general gist on how it works.

2 years ago, NetworkChuck introduced me to docker container. Not saying he’s the best youtuber to get you into docker and learning and stuff, but it’s a GOOD starting point :).

There is also Christian Lempa, Tech world with nana, who also will you give you some good pointer with docker and docker compose.

Good luck !

LainTrain, (edited )

Sudo docker will do the trick. Docker does some networking shit so it needs admin privileges

Don’t give up, don’t listen to goober 🤓 itt telling you to read manpages that shit is worthless.

bionicjoey,

Better yet, add yourself to the Docker group. You shouldn’t have to Sudo it

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