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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

I don’t remember ever getting anything to work in Bottles. PlayonLinux is much better (for any sort of app, not just games).

If I were you, I’d make sure to tackle one thing at the time, and set aside some time to figure it out, where the goal is not to for instance play games, but set up a game for play later. That way you can focus on the first part, instead of trying to rush that. So for example, when you are trying to set up Home Assistant, spend time just getting Docker to work first. I’ve fallen into that trap many times before, where I ended up not reading the messages properly because I was impatient and just wanted to get to the end fast. Once you get more familiar with Linux, this stuff gets quicker because more of the steps involved with any task is familiar to you already, and the troubleshooting threads you find on different forums are less Greek.

For specifics:

1. For Docker, when you feel ready to try that again, I’d recommend setting it up together with a GUI, like Portainer. If you follow the official guides to install Docker and then Portainer, you should have a web UI accessible that makes dealing with containers easier. I generally like doing things in the command line, but for containers, I prefer to have a GUI.

2. When it comes to Home Assistant, I’d honestly go for either Home Assistant Green or Yellow from Nabu Casa (you’d support the Open Home Foundation directly this way). If you want to set it up yourself, I’d go the route of a dedicated single board computer, like a Raspberry Pi, and use Home Assistant OS. I tried to set it up as a container as well before, but there are certain limitations you avoid by just running their OS directly on dedicated hardware. It’s been running smoothly for me since I set it up on my Raspberry Pi 4.

3. It is good to learn about Wine and Bottles, but I’d start out with Steam (and Proton), Heroic and Lutris. I’ve had much headaches getting stuff to run properly on Heroic and Lutris, but I think the trick here is to avoid Flatpaks for these sorts of things, because there are many dependencies, and you are dependent on a good permissions setup for Flatpaks. Your mileage may vary though, I’m sure there are plenty of people with painless experiences with Flatpaks here.

Before using docker u need learn how to use it,it would be problem no matter what os if u don’t know how to use this technology.Bottles yes or portproton,storage scan u can use gnome disk storage analyzer

I feel your pain… I recently tried very diligently to install Immich with docker after reading and watching several tutorials that claim it takea 5 minutes and its super easy… Failed… Like 5 times…

For some advice, I use heroic game launcher to install non steam games. Bottles kind of sucks IMO.

There is no failure, only data.

Use an operating system like Linux Mint. It’s very simple. Steam can solve the Wine problem, this can be done by adding a new game into your Steam library. Remember that all the distros have certain goals in mind.