How to install Docker in Linux Mint and Ubuntu

Today I will show you how to install Docker in Linux Mint and Ubuntu. Docker is a very useful tool which every developer should know. Using Docker you can run many applications with special containers. They are beside your system. For instance you code in php and you need php in your system to run application. With Docker you can install and run many versions of php. Let’s start!

Option 1 - manual installation

First of all we should update the package lists:

sudo apt-get update

Next we have to install dependencies:

sudo apt-get -y install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common

Perhaps you have installed all dependencies. After installing dependencies we have to add GPG key:

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -

and repository:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(. /etc/os-release; echo "$UBUNTU_CODENAME") stable"

When we add a new repository we have to remember to update package lists. So one more time we run sudo apt-get update .

Then we can install Docker in Linux Mint and Ubuntu (we install also docker-compose):

sudo apt-get install docker docker-compose

After installing Docker we have to add our user to a docker group:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

It is necessary in order to run Docker without root privileges (without sudo). In my opinion running Docker with sudo is not a good idea. Remember restart machine after adding your user to group!

We can check our installation:

docker -v
docker-compose -v
docker run hello world

You should see the version of docker and docker-compose.
If you will see it, it means that your installation is correct.

Option 2 - automatic installation

I wrote a shell script which install Docker in Linux Mint and Ubuntu automatically:

	#!/bin/bash
	sudo apt-get update
	# install dependencies
	sudo apt-get -y install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common
	# add the gpg key for docker
	curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
	# add the repository in the Linux mint 20
	sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(. /etc/os-release; echo "$UBUNTU_CODENAME") stable"
	sudo apt-get update
	# install docker and docker-compose
	sudo apt-get install docker docker-compose
	# add the user system to docker group (restart required)
	sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

view raw install-docker.sh hosted with ❤ by GitHub

You can get it on my GitHub.

You can see tutorial on YouTube.