I never understood how to use Docker, what makes it so special? I would really like to use it on my Rapsberry Pi 3 Model B+ to ease the setup process of selfhosting different things.
I’m currently running these things without Docker:
- Mumble server with a Discord bridge and a music bot
- Maubot, a plugin-based Matrix bot
- FTP server
- Two Discord Music bots
All of these things are running as systemd services in the background. Should I change this? A lot of the things I’m hosting offer Docker images.
It would also be great if someone could give me a quick-start guide for Docker. Thanks in advance!
How’s the Pi 3? I was considering the idea of getting one to avoid the crazy prices for newer models
If you’re OK with a little more power usage (like 10W instead of 3-5W), you can buy a mini PC from Dell/Lenovo/HP with a 7th gen Intel CPU for about $50-70 on ebay, with storage and RAM included. As a bonus you also get a case, power supply, cooling, etc… which you have to buy extra for the Pi.
It’ll be significantly faster in every way, with a lot more options for expansion if needed. The Pi 3 is very slow for even the most basic tasks, even just running
apt upgradecan take several minutes or more for a few package updates.A mini-pc with an Intel N100 will be a little more expensive (I bought one for ~150€) but it’s about 5-6 times faster than the Pi and mine also came with 16gb of RAM and a 500gb SSD. It requires very little power and because of that, it’s also very quiet. AV1 decode is also great if you plan to run something like Kodi on it or you want to do transcoding from an AV1 video with Jellyfin (I haven’t migrated those to it yet, so I don’t know how well it works in practice). I’m not sure but it might not even be a lot more expensive than a Pi with 8gb of RAM and an additional 500gb SSD.
i’ve got a used dell optiplex laying around for any bigger projects so a pi would be for tinkering with and small scale stuff. I didn’t have a good grasp of how slow it would run though thank you
A little slower by today’s standards, but if your needs are light, it’ll do the job. Keep in mind it only has a gigglebyte of RAM, so its capacity for running things may be limited, especially as docker applications go (since they bring a copy of each dependency). You won’t be able to run something as large as GitLab or Nextcloud, but a smattering of small apps should be within its capabilities
It’s great for my needs. If you think about picking one up today, I wouldn’t really recommend it. It just offers too little resources to be actually viable in the regular day. I use mine because I had it laying in the dust for a couple of years. Well, it’s enough for my Mumble server and the bots I use for Discord and Matrix.
IMO, Pis are for tinkering or anything that needs the GPIO.
Everything else should be some cheapo PC without the GPIO, or something embeded designed for the GPIO.
Pis are great for hobby/fun things and for prototyping.