Early Linux Support

Environment initialization

In order to be able to build and run Kitematic from scratch (clean Linux box), you'll need to install some packages.

Install build dependences

Debian

In a terminal, execute the following with root privileges:

$ apt-get install build-essential npm nodejs-legacy libcanberra-gtk-module

Note: nodejs-legacy is installing a symbolic link /usr/bin/node -> nodejs in order to make things working.

Install Docker

$ curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ubuntu/ | sudo sh
$ sudo gpasswd -a ${USER} docker
$ sudo service docker restart

Now logout and login again, or execute the following in a terminal in order to tell the current terminal about the new docker group changes :

$ newgrp docker

Build Kitematic

In your developments folder or any other places:

$ git clone https://github.com/docker/kitematic
$ cd kitematic/
$ make

Start kitematic

From the Kitematic folder execute the following:

$ npm start

Troubleshooting

The terminal emulator symbolic link doesn't exists

You see this message when your Linux distribution does not have the x-terminal-emulator symbolic link installed. This symbolic link is pointing to the default terminal which is then used by Kitematic in order to provide you access in a running container.

Depending on your distribution you need to find the right package to install. For example on Debian this page shows a list of possible packages to install x-terminal-emulator.

Arch Linux AUR package

This AUR package solely installs a binary build from the linux-support branch at https://github.com/zedtux/kitematic and adds a .desktop file and icon.

yaourt -S kitematic

See: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/kitematic