Docker is a cli only app, if you want a gui interface check out docker desktop

https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/linux-install/

The crazy pills are the first step in learning. Embrace the crazy. Take more pills.

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).

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!

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.

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 do docker 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 the find 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 arguments

Running 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 use docker 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 port 8080 on your host, the traffic will be forwarded to port 80 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 or docker 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!

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

I'm also pretty new to Linux, but I've finally gotten a bit of a grasp on it. I started learning Linux to set up a home server, so I also jumped straight into Docker. You have gotten some thorough replies, but I thought I'd share my chaotic journey with it that has ended in a decent ratio of success vs confusion. Note: I have used Ubuntu from the start.

Don't use docker desktop. It's garbage. Also, don't use the Snap image.

$sudo apt install docker.io

$sudo apt install docker-compose

Those are both cli "programs". They aren't apps like you have on Windows. It seems VERY intimidating to talk into the void of the terminal, but you'll build confidence. Docker commands work like any other commands, all in the same place.

Now install Portainer CE. The instructions are very simple to follow. You can reach Portainer through your browser at the localhost address it gives you, which you type directly into the URL bar. I think it's http://localhost:9000.

Portainer will give you an easy visual way to manage Docker. You can perform many tasks through Portainer instead of using the command line. Honestly, I'm pretty sure you could do everything on Portainer and not even touch the terminal. I don't suggest that because you will have to have at least a basic understanding of how Linux and Docker work. You will be confused, and you will feel crazy. Eventually, you'll get more comfortable living in that psychosis.

On to Docker Compose!! This is my preferred way to run containers. I have a designated folder in /opt that I use for my compose files. This way, I know exactly how I set up my programs. My memory is awful and I tweak things so often that I'll completely forget how I have even gotten to this point or where ANY of my files are. It's pretty easy to find docker compose files online that you can copy and paste and it instantly works!

To make it simple, after I have saved my docker-compose.yaml file in the designated folder, I right click on the empty area and choose "open in terminal".

$sudo docker-compose up -d

The -d instructs the program to continue to run, even if you exit out of the terminal. At this point, your container will also show up in portainer!

I think that covers the basics. My biggest tip is to keep a notepad handy to write down commands that you have to search for. Your bookmarks will fill up very quickly otherwise. Expect to get stuck sometimes. Expect to spend hours trying to troubleshoot an issue, then have it suddenly work with no idea what you actually did to fix it. Accept the win and never touch it again.

I have done fresh installs many times. Some because I've played with 10 different programs that I decided against and want the leftover files gone, some because I wanted to try different mixes of distros, and once because I legitimately broke the OS.

Keep your important stuff on an external drive to avoid any loss and don't be afraid to mess around with it!

Btw, I'm a huge KDE plasma fan. It's lighter than GNOME, but very user friendly. I've settled on Kubuntu as my distro of choice.

There's not a fantastic GUI for managing docker. There are a few like dockge (my favorite) or Portainer.

I recommend spending some time learning docker run with exposed ports, bind volumes (map local folders from your drive to folders inside the container so you can access your files, configs, content, etc. Also so you don't lose it when you delete the container and pull a newer version).

Once you've done that, check out the spec page for docker-compose.yaml. This is what you'll eventually want to use to run your apps. It's a single file that describes all the configuration and details required for multiple docker containers to run in the same environment. ie: postgres version 4.2 with a volume and 1 exposed port, nginx latest version with 2 volumes, 4 mapped ports, a hostname, restart unless-stopped, and running as user 1000:1000, etc.

I've been using docker for home a LIGHT business applications for 8 years now and docker-compose.yaml is really all you need until you start wanting high availability and cloud orchestration.

Some quick tips though.

• Search some-FOSS-app-name docker-compose read through a dozen or so templates. Check the spec page to see what most of the terms mean. It's the best way to learn how to structure your own compose files later.
• Use other people's compose.yaml files as templates to start from. Expect to change a few things for your own setup.
• NEVER use restart: always. Never. Change it to restart: unless-stopped. Nothing is more annoying than stopping an app and having it keep doom spiraling. Especially at boot.
• Take a minute to set the docker daemon or service to run at boot. It takes 1 google and 30 seconds, but it'll save you when you drunkenly decide to update your host OS right before bed.
• Use mapped folders for everything. If you map /srv/dumb-app/data:/data then anything that container saves to the /data folder is accessible to you on your host machine (with whatever user:group is running inside the container, so check that). If you use the docker volumes like EVERYONE seems to like doing, it's a pain to ever get that data back out if you want to use it outside of docker.

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.

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 :.

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.

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

Zorin is this, though your choice of Mint is good too. It will not help you understand docker though.

If you're trying to do Audibookshelf on a home server CasaOS made docker super easy for me.

I remember being so lost in the dark when starting docker. There's 2 main approaches to launching docker containers. One is with CLI arguments and one is from a docker-compose.yml file.

I highly recommend the latter.

Try going to chatGPT and ask it to write a docker compose file for whatever service you're trying to stand up.

Apt install docker.io

docker run -d -p 8000:8000 -p 9443:9443 --name portainer --restart=always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v portainer_data:/data portainer/portainer-ce:latest

Go to IP:8000 and now you can build docker compose stacks. A far easier way to learn docker.

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:

version: "3.7"
  services: 
    audiobookshelf:
      image: ghcr.io/advplyr/audiobookshelf:latest
      ports: - 13378:80
      volumes:
        - :/audiobooks
        - :/podcasts - :/config
        - :/metadata

https://www.audiobookshelf.org/docs/#docker-compose-install

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.

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.

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.

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?

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!

Docker is a pain in the dick

Ok, so I don't know the specifics, this might not be entirely accurate, but this is a general step-by-step guide for Debian based distros like Mint.

Install docker

The first thing you need to do is install docker, this can be done via whatever GUI you use for a package manager or via the terminal using sudo apt install docker (I'm not sure docker is the name of the package, I'm just guessing, you can do an apt search docker to see what's available)

Add yourself to dockers

This is likely not needed on Mint, but just in case your user should be in the docker group, i.e. run sudo gpasswd -a docker. I'm almost sure Mint does this by default.

Enable docker systemd

This also might not be needed, again I'm almost sure Mint does this for you when you install docker, but just in case the command is sudo systemctl enable docker

Reboot

Because there have been changes to your user groups you need to relogin, easier to reboot.

use docker

Now you have a system with docker, you can test this by running the following command docker run hello-world, if you see a bunch of text that contains "Hello from docker" docker is working.

setup a docker-compose file

Create a folder, and in that folder create a text file called docker-compose.yaml in that file. This file will tell docker what you want to run, for example to have Nextcloud (which is an awesome self-hosted drive alternative. I'm not going to teach you the specific services you want, you can figure those out by looking at their page on the linuxserver page or something) you can look here https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/nextcloud on how to write your docker-compose file, for example you could write:

services:
  nextcloud:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/nextcloud:latest
    container_name: nextcloud
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Etc/UTC
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - ./data:/data
    ports:
      - 8080:80
      - 443:443
    restart: unless-stopped

Then open a terminal on that folder and run docker compose up -d after that is done open a browser and go to http://localhost:8080 and begin using Nextcloud.

Honestly, for those tools, I'd recommend posting in [email protected].

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 https://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

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.

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 !

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

podman is better but thats just my opinion btw

There are distributions like CasaOS and TrueNAS Scale that try to offer at least a bit of graphical guidance for some popular apps.

Otherwise, you're jumping into the server pool, Windows doesn't really work that different from Linux in that area (in the sense that you can just click on things).

Docker can be really confusing, but IMO being able to add and remove software without having changes made throughout your system is well worth the effort.

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.

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.

Try a more managed and out-of-the-box solution first, then work your way down to the commandline. I'd recommend one of the NAS solutions like openmediavault (if they still do docker) or https://cockpit-project.org/

or Docker for Desktop or podman.io

(maybe lxc containers with proxmox or unraid)

I would check out tutorials or YouTube videos. Try: https://drfrankenstein.co.uk/sabnzbd-in-container-manager-on-a-synology-nas/

OP: chatGPT is your personal Linux guru. Pretend it's your friend who knows everything about linux and tell it what you want to achieve.

Paste in any error messages and it will tell you how to fix them. Just make sure it knows what distro you're using first.

That's how I learned to use docker :)

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.

Man, good luck. Is there no other way you can accomplish that without Docker. I've been using Linux for years and I still don't know how to set up a docker container lol

If you're not planning to actually learn Docker, use an LLM AI to help you out. I just tried the following prompt in Gemini "generate docker-compose.yml that runs audiobookshelf and Sonarr with Sabnzbd" and it generated something that looks reasonable. Then you can follow it up with prompts like "how do I auto start it on linux?" and it will generate the systemd unit, and also tell you what commands to run.