I'm trying to learn Docker and want to avoid reloading my system multiple times if something goes wrong. For this, I've been using a live Linux distribution to follow the official Docker installation guide. However, whenever I attempt to run the hello world container, I encounter an error message saying "error: failed to mount /tmp/{random characters}." I've tested this on various distros including Ubuntu, Debian, Almalinux, and Fedora. I'm looking for advice on what I'm doing wrong or how to fix this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
2 Answers
Running Docker from a live USB is pretty uncommon, and you're likely going to run into some major issues. Live environments primarily use overlay filesystems, which don't support nesting overlays. This could be why you’re getting mount errors. Also, since the live environment has limited writable space based on your RAM, you might run out of memory quickly while pulling images. If you still want to try Docker here, you might need to create writable directories at `/var/lib/containerd` and `/var/lib/docker`. I did a quick test with a custom Debian live CD, and it worked by doing the following commands to set up the environment.
Testing from a live environment isn't the best approach to experiment with Docker, especially since you might hit memory limits quickly. Instead of using a live system, I recommend using a virtual machine for this kind of testing. They're just more suited for running Docker without the limitations you're facing now, but if you can't run a VM, have you thought about lightweight alternatives to Docker like Podman?
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