Last year we announced that Docker had released a preview of Docker Desktop with WSL 2 integration. We are now pleased to announce that we have completed the work to enable experimental support for Windows Home WSL 2 integration. This means that Windows Insider users on 19040 or higher can now install and use Docker Desktop!
Feedback on this first version of Docker Desktop for Windows Home is welcomed! To get started, you will need to be on Windows Insider Preview build 19040 or higher and install the Docker Desktop Edge 2.2.2.0.
What’s in Docker Desktop for Windows Home?
Docker Desktop for WSL 2 Windows Home is a full version of Docker Desktop for Linux container development. It comes with the same feature set as our existing Docker Desktop WSL 2 backend. This gives you:
- Latest version of Docker on your Windows machine
- Install Kubernetes in one click on Windows Home
- Integrated UI to view/manage your running containers
- Start Docker Desktop in <5 seconds
- Use Linux Workspaces
- Dynamic resource/memory allocation
- Networking stack, support for http proxy settings, and trusted CA synchronization
How do I get started developing with Docker Desktop?
For the best experience of developing with Docker and WSL 2, we suggest having your code inside a Linux distribution. This improves the file system performance and thanks to products like VSCode mean you can still do all of your work inside the Windows UI and in an IDE you know and love.
Firstly make sure you are on the Windows insider program, are on 19040 and have installed Docker Desktop Edge.
Next install a WSL distribution of Linux (for this example I will assume something like Ubuntu from the Microsoft store).
Mike Halvorsen has been building things with open source software since 1997. As an early adopter of linux container technology, Mike has deep experience using linux containers at scale.