Kerno on ArchLinux (btw)

Configure Docker on Arch Linux so Kerno can run.

This page explains how to configure your development environment on Arch Linux to run Kerno. Kerno relies on Docker to run its test sandbox and to reach your application.

Docker Desktop on ArchLinux

Docker Desktop is not officially supported on ArchLinux. It may fail with errors such as:

qemu: process terminated unexpectedly: signal: aborted (core dumped)

These issues are commonly related to kernel updates, QEMU integration, or unsupported system configurations. For ArchLinux, Docker Engine installed directly from the distribution repositories is the recommended and supported approach.

We highly recommend uninstalling Docker Desktop and install the deamon directly instead.

Docker installation on ArchLinux

Docker must be installed using the official Arch Linux packages. Following the Arch Wiki documentation:

sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S docker
sudo systemctl enable --now docker

You can verify the installation with:

docker info

Docker Compose

Kerno requires Docker Compose v2, which uses the following syntax:

docker compose

The legacy docker-compose command is deprecated and should not be used. Installation instructions for the docker compose plugin are available in the official Docker documentation, follow the manual installation, since ArchLinux distro isn't supported.

After installation, verify with:

docker compose version

Verification checklist

Before using Kerno, ensure the following commands work without sudo:

docker info
docker run hello-world
docker compose version

If these commands succeed, your system is correctly configured to run Kerno end-to-end tests.

If you encounter issues or have questions, message us on Discord, and we’ll gladly help.