Deploy Linux & Docker/Portainer

If you’re a beginner to linux and docker/microservices, this how-to is a great starting point. This approach creates a clean canvas to deploy our AI tools in a modular and easily maintainable manner. We’ll get to the actual AI stuff soon.

If you already have a linux workstation (bare metal or hypervisor-based VM), you can skip this step. If you’re a Windows user, we’ll deploy linux via WSL2.

Why WSL 2?

Native-speed Linux kernel on Windows
Shared file system with Windows (\\wsl$) - no clunky dual-boot
Perfect runtime for Docker without Virtual Machine overhead

Note: WSL 2 needs Windows 10 21H2+ or Windows 11.

Step 1 — Install WSL 2 + Ubuntu

Open PowerShell as Administrator and run the single command:
Terminal window
```
wsl --install
```
This:
- enables all pre-requiste Windows Subsystem for Linux features
- downloads latest Ubuntu LTS (as of now version 24.04)
- sets Ubuntu LTS as the default WSL 2 version
Create your Linux username/password.

That’s it. After you set your password you’ll be in your WSL2 linux environment. Use your search bar and search for “Ubuntu” to open a new terminal session at any time.

Step 2 — Install Docker inside WSL 2

We’re going to deploy the latest version of docker and use portainer as our container orchestrator and front-end.

Set up Docker’s apt repository.

# inside the Ubuntu shell
# Add Docker's official GPG key:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
# Add the repository to Apt sources:
echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt update

Install the latest Docker packages

sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Step 3 — Deploy Portainer with Docker Compose

Portainer gives us a browser dashboard to launch / monitor / troubleshoot containers and stacks.

We’ll be using the stacks feature to organize and manage our containers in later lessons. For now, let’s just get portainer running.

Create 2 new folders - a docker folder for our docker-compose file, & a portainer folder to mount portainer data to our host:
Terminal window
```
mkdir -p ~/docker/portainer
```
Add a docker-compose.yml:

Inside the docker directory, create a new file with the command nano docker-compose.yml. Add the following contents -

services:
  portainer:
    image: portainer/portainer-ce:latest
    container_name: portainer
    restart: always
    ports:
      - "8000:8000" # Edge agent (optional)
      - "9443:9443" # HTTPS UI/API
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
      - ~/docker/portainer:/data

ctrl + x to exit the nano editor & Y to save our new file changes.

going forward, I’ll assume you know how to make and edit files in linux.

Launch it:
Terminal window
```
sudo docker compose up -d
sudo docker ps
```

You should see the portainer/portainer-ce:latest image listed with a up status.

Open https://localhost:9443 (enter an admin password on first run).

After setting a password, you’re greeted with the portainer dashboard. Click “containers” to see the status of your newly created container.

Great, now we’ve created the canvas for our AI productivity environment.

What’s next?

Part 2 will show you how to:

spin up LLM API using docker containers (Ollama + OpenWebUI) inside WSL 2 visually through Portainer Stacks.

Quick recap

We did	Why it matters
Installed WSL 2	Performant Linux Dev Environment Integrated with Windows
Installed Docker Engine	Containerization Backbone
Deployed Portainer	Visual Docker Container Management & Orchestration