02 · Environment Setup

Previous: 01-OverviewNext: 03-Deployment

Install Docker, set up networking for mainland China, connect the hardware. If you don't finish this page, the next one won't run.

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1. Install Docker

Skip this if it's already installed, but check first:

docker --version

If it isn't installed:

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sudo sh
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

You must log out and back in after the last command (log out and log in again, or reboot), otherwise the docker command reports a permission error. To verify:

docker run --rm hello-world

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2. Configure China-region registry mirrors ⚠️ Required if you're in mainland China

Direct connections to Docker Hub from mainland China time out — without a mirror configured, you can't pull any image.

Edit /etc/docker/daemon.json (create it if it doesn't exist):

{
    "registry-mirrors": [
        "https://docker.m.daocloud.io",
        "https://docker.1ms.run",
        "https://docker.xuanyuan.me"
    ]
}

Restart Docker:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart docker

Verify the mirrors are in effect:

docker info | grep -A4 "Registry Mirrors"

⚠️ Many mirror addresses floating around online have stopped working (USTC, NetEase, and dockerproxy.com have all shut down) — don't copy from old articles. The three above were measured working as of September 2026.

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3. Prepare the hardware

3.1 Wiring the robot

1. Connect the SO-101 arm's servos to the computer through the USB adapter board
2. Plug in the camera over USB (if using a RealSense, use a USB 3.0 port)

3.2 Serial port permissions ⚠️ Important

Without this, the container can't see the devices:

sudo usermod -aG dialout $USER

This also requires a re-login to take effect.

3.3 Confirm the devices are detected

ls /dev/ttyACM* /dev/ttyUSB*    # servo serial ports
ls /dev/video*                   # camera

If you can see the device nodes, the system has recognized them.

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4. Configure the Hugging Face mirror ⚠️ Required in mainland China

huggingface.co is completely unreachable from mainland China, yet loading pretrained models requires it.

Add this environment variable when starting the container:

-e HF_ENDPOINT=https://hf-mirror.com

scripts/run.sh already sets it by default. If you're fully offline, also add -e HF_HUB_OFFLINE=1.

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Checklist

Before moving on to the next page, confirm these all pass:

docker --version                       # Docker installed
docker info | grep -A4 "Registry Mirrors"   # mirrors active
groups | grep dialout                  # serial permissions configured (after re-login)
ls /dev/ttyACM*                        # device detected

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Next: 03-Deployment — pull the image, start the container