Docker won’t make much sense if you don’t understand the underlying Linux systems and/or applications.

It’s similar with Wine and Bottles. If you don’t get what’s in the bottle, then running the bottle won’t make sense.

Find tasks that run on the native OS. learn to manage Linux itself. skip containers, Snap, virtual machines, etc.

try running a web server using httpd or something.

Don’t feel bad, I’ve used Linux since 1995 and don’t have enough skills to use Bottles.

I do however game a lot, using mainly Steam and Heroic. You can try to start there.

A thing about Linux is that there’s usually like 10 different ways to accomplish something. If you hit a dead end in terms of your ability or tolerance for frustration… just go back to square one and find a different approach. For games, I recommend starting with Steam.

Docker is annoying as fuck. Don’t blame yourself for not getting it to work.

Bottles is also annoying as fuck.

These two things aren’t really a sign of your skill. The first one (docker) is unfortunately super prevalent these days because of memes and bandwagoning. It has its use, but it’s also used in many places where it’s not needed without providing a comparable means to run software without docker. It sucks how newbies who are just trying to get a program to work all of a sudden have to learn a bunch of docker bullshit. Just another layer of crap to make things harder to learn while the creators jerk themselves off.

Running Windows games on Linux will always be a pain in the ass because you’re trying to run complicated, sometimes very old, software that straight up was not designed to be run on Linux! I’ve been doing it for years and it’s still a pain in the ass. Some games only work with Lutris, some require very specific settings. It’s all a mess and I don’t ever expect a Windows game to work unless I’ve gotten it to work recently and played it a bunch.

It’s not your fault. It’s not Linux’s fault. This is the price that we all collectively get to pay for not doing things right the first time.

In short, don’t lose hope. You’re doing fine.

Professional software engineer here. Those things are not easy and even seniors in my field (and myself, ex-top-tech) get tripped up on it and ask for help. Docker and self-hosting is an entire subspecialty (e.g. devops). Be gentle on yourself and don’t put yourself down. By struggling with Linux you are doing immense good for the open source community. “Step by step guides” not likely given the wide array of issues you could run into. If you know a technically strong person, buy them lunch and watch them walk through your problems for an hour. You’ll either learn something or feel validated that they’re struggling too. Keep at it and thanks!

You seem to be reaching for pretty advanced solutions – Docker and HA both require you to read a lot of documentation to get started. Bottles is also a powerful and flexible tool, which is the opposite of simple.

What game are you trying to run? If it’s on Steam it should be a no-brainer, otherwise Lutris can simplify a lot of things.

I doubt you actually need Docker for anything, unless you have a specific use case I would just abandon that. For your lights, I would try searching for “home assistant [model/brand of lights]” and see if you can find a setup that someone else has gotten working that you can mostly copy.

I have fucked up my computer so many times.

• Accidentally uninstalled the graphical environment, because i didn’t notice my package manager was asking me if i wanted to uninstall 200 packages, along with whatever i actually wanted to uninstall.
• Tested a fork bomb (it worked!)
• Installed a dual boot system incorrectly.
• Installed a dual boot system correctly, but Windows had an update.
• Tried to switch out a working component with Something Really Cool™
• I have spent days troubleshooting an issue that turned out to be a simple syntax error.
• And, while technically not fucking with the computer itself, this deserves a mention; Fucking up the wifi/network SO MANY TIMES.

I have also succeeded with some really cool stuff, but that’s the thing about working with computers; you fail completely, until it works perfectly. This is of course a gross simplification, but it also has a lot of truth to it. There’s just not a lot “this is not great, but it will do”, it either functions or it fails (until you get it working and start fine tuning it for the rest of you life)

Just laugh at the absurdity of the situation when you realize you were just missing a comma in a JSON file, and don’t let it bother you that you didn’t notice before you paid to have your second floor covered in aluminium foil trying to fix the issue.

Try creating a VM in GNOME Boxes (if you use GNOME) or Virt-manager, take a snapshot, so you can easily repeat this process, and break it. Just make it stop functioning. Do it in an interesting way, and look up more ways on the internet.

Be curious, have fun and don’t feel bad about getting sick of that stupid computer, you can come back later and it won’t care that you even left.

Portainer helped me get my head around docker images. And docker hub sometimes has the steps to configure the container, and sometimes not; many assume everyone knows how to pass bind or volume mounts and bridge or host network stuff.

I played with portainer a while to visually see what thing do.

Then it led to command line and yaml configs stuff after that. Its a learning process.

Technically, nothing you use in tech is ever really “simple”, there’s tons of complexity hidden from the common user. And whenever parts of that complexity fail or don’t work like the user expects it to, then the superficially simple stuff becomes hard.

Docker and containers are a fairly advanced topic. Don’t think that it’s easy getting into this stuff. Everyone has to learn quite a bit in advance to utilize that.

To play games, you went into the wrong direction when fiddling with wine directly, or even just indirectly by using bottles You COULD do that, but you’ve literally chosen the hardest path to do so. You should use something like HeroicGamesLauncher, Lutris or Steam in order to manage your games, install and launch them fairly easily. These will take care of all the complex stuff behind the scenes for you.

I too am very cautious of getting stuck with Linux. I try to be sure I’m not doing things the hard way. I have found easy distros and easy ways to do most things in Linux despite many people suggesting I do it the IT pro way that they do. Usually because they haven’t investigated easy ways for non IT users. They mean well, but don’t know about usability or if there us an easy way.

I’ve been daily driving Linux since the early 00s and docker confounds me too, especially the networking. I’m not familiar with bottles. I just play all my games on steam and it’s seamless.

Yeah I feel Linux has a lot of dead ends. Its easy to follow the wrong path. My saving grace has always been that once you get things working, you know how you did it and it likely won’t change much.

So really its a big search, but once you hit a steady state it really feels like home.

So… you receive plenty of great technical advice, I won’t go there.

I’m sure your title is wrong. I know for a fact that there is plenty of things you did with Linux that looked until then impossible. They do look impossible to most people today. So… yes there are plenty of things you don’t know how to reliably do but you eventually will manage!

I did read a bit from the Greater Good Science Center in Berkeley https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/ and there was a piece specifically on “everytime” or “always” as basically shortcuts during arguments that reframe the situation incorrectly. You surely meant to say “I often get frustrated trying new things on Linux” instead. It sounds like I’m nitpicking, yet simply rephrasing gives a totally new outlook to the situation. We all, literally ALL of us, do struggle when we try something new. We often fail but if we keep on trying, get methodical about it (what was the error message? did I try something similar before? how does it actually work? who could help me? etc) then you are bound to succeed.

So no, you are not the problem. No, you are not an imbecile. No, you do not always fail!

I opted to install a game, fail.

What game? Install how? Is it from an online platform?

I just want to try home assisstant with a few lights but fair enough it is beyond me.

The installation of home assistant, or its usage?

which distro and hardware config? Can’t speak to docker as I don’t use that any more, I’ve yet to get stuck into homeassistant, but games are just click and run on most distros with steam?