52 posts tagged with "docker"

As you know, VSCode is a superb editor that lets you program in probably any programming language. An editor, not an IDE, because VSCode is basically a Notepad in its ultimate version.

If you want to program in Python, you'll need to install a few extensions in VSCode to be really comfortable, i.e. syntax highlighting, code navigation, code refactoring (like renaming a variable or a class), etc.

There are ‘ready-to-use’ editors like PyCharm but 1. they cost money and 2. they are specific (you won't be able to program in PHP with PyCharm; or even work easily with HTML/CSS files).

In this new article, we'll look at how to get a VSCode environment ready to use straight away for coding in Python, and as it's VSCode it's 1. free, 2. multi-purpose and 3. insanely powerful.

During my summer holidays, I've watched this video: Full Ubuntu GUI in a Container Displayed on Windows (XServer) and, of course, I wanted to play with it.

The idea is to start a Lubuntu Desktop distribution as a Docker container. Lubuntu is a lightweight Ubuntu distribution designed to be more resource-efficient than the standard Ubuntu.

Using Docker and Windows X Server, we'll be able to play with Lubuntu just like any other containers i.e. play and drop without any impact on our ghost. Ideal for learning purposes then.

At the end of 2023, I wrote a very long post about using Joomla with Docker: Create your Joomla website using Docker - Part 1.

It was a step-by-step introduction to Docker and the creation of a local Joomla-based website.

I explained, at length, the various steps involved in creating a website, choosing a database engine (MySQL, MariaDB or PostgreSQL), choosing a specific version of Joomla / database engine, the type of volumes (should the site and database be kept in RAM or on the hard disk (i.e. the notion of volumes)) and many other things such as choosing the port for the website, creating an alias (something like http://my_project.local instead of http://127.0.0.1). I strongly urge you to read or re-read this article before starting this one.

As Docker and Joomla are evolving rapidly, I propose here to start from where we were and see what has changed since then.

We're also going to take automation a step further, making much greater use of the concept of makefile and a configuration file called .env.

In previous articles (Part 1 and Part 2), we've seen how to create a Joomla site from scratch by using Docker: pull Joomla, PHP, Apache and MySQL from Docker Hub and do magic stuff so we have a fresh http://127.0.0.1:8080 local site.

In this article, we'll see how to restore on our machine, a backup created thanks to great Akeeba Backup component.

We'll reuse some files from Part 2 and make some changes to them.

At the end, we'll have a make import command that will start Akeeba Kickstart.

But what is Docker anyway? In the simplest possible terms, how can we explain what Docker is used for?

Let's take the case of a cooking recipe as a starting point.

Yesterday lunchtime, while chatting with a friend, he highlighted a simple fact: explain the easiest way in the world to start a Joomla project with Docker.

The aim is to hop, hop, copy/paste a file, hop, Joomla is launched and you can start playing with the site.

Let's take a look; not in detail, but right to the point.

In my previous post, I've illustrated how to start Firefox or GIMP in a browser. This was the first part of this series about graphical user interfaces because, until very recently, I didn't know it was possible to run GUIs with Docker and that's just amazing.

So, using Docker, we can start Firefox or GIMP or even ... Doom 2.

In this blog post, we'll create our own xeyes Docker image, then play with Firefox and Gimp.

In a future article, I'll be covering a subject I've just discovered: the possibility of running graphical interfaces in Docker and, therefore, having a Linux application running in Windows.

But first, let's take a look at a few graphical interfaces, such as Firefox or GIMP (image processing software), which can be run as if they were web applications.

There are plenty articles on the Internet but I didn't find the one that allowed me, without an impressive amount of trial and error, to find the solution.

So here's another article to add to the long list: how to access a private project stored at Github when creating a Docker image. In other words, the SSH key is not stored in the image. Docker will just use your key when executing the project recovery layer (the one containing the git clone instruction) and will not keep track of the key afterwards.

In a previous article, I've explained how to run a static HTML site in seconds.

The result was a site running on your computer; using http. Let's go one step further and learn how to configure Docker to use https i.e. SSL and encryption.

In this article, you'll learn how to use Apache, nginx and PHP on your machine and be able to start https://localhost.