this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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54
Docker - what use is it? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I see Docker mentioned every other thread and was wondering how useful it is for non development things, and if so what they are.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I could go in-depth, but really, the best way I can describe my docker usage is as a simple and agnostic service manager. Let me explain.

Docker is a container system. A container is essentially an operating system installation in a box. It's not really a full installation, but it's close enough that understanding it like that is fine.

So what the service devs do is build a container (operating system image) with their service and all the required dependencies - and essentially nothing else (in order to keep the image as small as possible). A user can then use Docker to run this image on their system and have a running service in just a few terminal commands. It works the same across all distributions. So I can install whatever distro I need on the server for whatever purpose and not have to worry that it won't run my Docker services. This also means I can test services locally on my desktop without messing with my server environment. If it works on my local Docker, it will work on my server Docker.

There are a lot of other uses for it, like isolated development environments and testing applications using other Linux distro libraries, to name a couple, but again, I personally mostly just use it as a simple service manager.

tldr + eli5 - App devs said "works on my machine", so Docker lets them ship their machine.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

So I can install whatever distro I need on the server for whatever purpose and not have to worry that it won't run my Docker services.

The one caveat to that is switching between something ARM-based like a Pi and an x86 server. Many popular services have ARM versions but not all do.

Edit: In saying that, building your own image from source isn’t too complicated most of the time.