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!

  • QantumEntangled
    17•9 months ago

    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.