Docker Desktop and Windows 10 2004

Ok as I previously talked about getting Docker up and going on a PC that really does not support the level of Hyper-V that is needed by Docker Desktop… there is a another solution. Windows 2004 update…

Now I’ve been putting off the move to version 2004 because it was known to have had problems… But I finally made the move… no real problems yet. So why do this… with Windows 10 2004 one get’s WSL (the Windows Subsystem Linux). This is key to getting Docker Desktop to work without using Hyper-V!

So lets do some stepping through this:

First move one’s Windows to version 2004 (hours and hours and hours later) – make sure you enable – Windows Subsystem for Linux- it may or may not be turned on.
Second install Docker Desktop – if WSL is installed and ready the opening installer for Docker will have a WSL 2 enable selection. Make sure you select that.
 **One might also have to update a default distro to WSL 2 if you have linux distros already on your PC. One will get a warning and where to go to do that.

Now when Docker Desktop finally gets loaded or running… go into Powershell and do a wsl -l -v:

PS C:\ps_Home> wsl -l -v
  NAME                   STATE           VERSION
* Ubuntu                 Stopped         2
  SLES-15                Stopped         2
  Ubuntu-20.04           Stopped         2
  Debian                 Stopped         2
  kali-linux             Stopped         1
  docker-desktop-data    Running         2
  docker-desktop         Running         2
PS C:\ps_Home>

If, again, everything is ok… you should see a similar list to the one above… these are the Linux Distros. As one can see I have several.
** You can select which Distro is used in Docker, but it must be a WSL 2 version… Now one can convert version 1 (in my list that would be kali-linux) by doing a wsl command-

wsl --set-version kali-linux 2

You can Enable the other Distros for Docker within the Docker Desktop app. Settings => Resources => WSL Integration.

And now you are good to go.

~SG