Roadmap: [Docker Desktop] Linux Implementation

[grealish]

Tell us about your request
As there is a Docker Desktop for Windows and OSX, to complete the offer, a Linux build would be great, to complete the offer. As allot of us in the container community know there is allot of tools which basically address some of the same requirements. Non are complete, e.g Take VMware Workstation or player for linux, It was a quick bootstrap and enabled people to jump into the virtualization world quickly. People even installed it on nested VM's (which dev's had root access to) and they could work freely and effectively.

Which service(s) is this request for?
Docker Desktop

Tell us about the problem you're trying to solve. What are you trying to do, and why is it hard?
Lower the bar of enabling developer to jump into containers,
Enable that docker desktop can be run on a remote ubuntu / centos system which developers would remote desktop into,

Are you currently working around the issue?
Many tools exist to have a developer workflow on a linux system, both locally and remote, however this require quite some knowledge upfront and not a fluid experience, many tools like, minishit, minikube, kind, and docker-compose and docker-ce sovle part of the developer experience.

Additional context
DRAFT WIP

[412PIT]

@grealish thank you for the feature idea! Could you comment on how many of your team members, friends, other developers you know use Linux on their local desktop/remote dev environment?

[AkihiroSuda]

How will this be different from plain Docker CE for Linux?

[grealish]

How will this be different from plain Docker CE for Linux?

It doesn't compare, unfortunately people starting off with docker-ce never really leave extend there experience into the cloud and have no nice UI overview.
Also it's a challenge for many to get minikube up, so a drop in .deb or .rpm that brings up a desktop app would solve this, For example, how would someone have this user experience on a ubuntu desktop/vm?

[ingshtrom]

To throw gas on the fire here, I would say that with the new user experience being moved towards Desktop this becomes more of a requirement than a nice to have.

[tao12345666333]

Personally, I prefer CLI.

Under Linux I use Docker CE.
Under Mac, I use Docker Desktop for Mac, but I use it from the command line, almost no UI.

I'm not sure what "Docker Desktop for Linux" will look like, or if anyone will use it.

There are some solutions available under Linux

• lazydocker - The lazier way to manage everything docker

• DockStation - Developing with Docker has never been so easy and convenient

• Portainer

[Vincent14]

Personally, I prefer CLI.

[...].

I'm not sure what "Docker Desktop for Linux" will look like, or if anyone will use it.

Docker started as a powerful tool designed for power-users only, and bring an easier access point on Mac & Win, where some people are less convenient with CLI. There is also less-experimented people on Linux and they are the target of this Desktop Client. As said previously, these users could remote control a Linux desktop to achieve the same goal with the benefits of a Linux environment.

[xinity]

Personally, I prefer CLI.

[...].
I'm not sure what "Docker Desktop for Linux" will look like, or if anyone will use it.

IMHO the problem is not if alternative exists, they do of course, and are doing a great job.
Main point here is to offer the same UX. To help on-boarding people without having to deal with their favorite operating system.

as @ndeloof said on twitter nowadays Docker Desktop doesn't only offer the docker cli and engine, it brings more and more useful features (seamless Kubernetes integration, docker hub integration in the UI, ...).

I really think this feature would be a game changer perhaps even a killer feature :)

[grealish]

Main point here is to offer the same UX. To help on-boarding people without having to deal with their favourite operating system.

Yes exactly, this is why I bring up the need now, when we have training/workshops having a solid and accessible user experience to on-board makes allot of great first impressions, especially getting developer to start working on refactoring there monolith into containers, Nivida for example JetPack SDK manager, this is a ubuntu GUI too to jump start people into the AI development experience and makes one getting setup effortless.

[jycamier]

Docker Desktop on linux may bring a good way to normalized a full update (docker + docker-compose + kubernetes). Moreover, the integration of Kubernetes is really simple and quite good.

[sudo-bmitch]

I'm not sure what "Docker Desktop for Linux" will look like, or if anyone will use it.

There are a variety of Desktop only features:

• Built in checking for updates
• New UI for managing deployed containers
• Certified Kubernetes easy install
• Enterprise features like application templates and app designer

The big one for me is a built in kubernetes environment on the desktop without needing kubeadm, kind, k3s, or any of the other more complex solutions.

[bhack]

Not super-fresh but.. https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/search-gui-docker

[SvenDowideit]

For us, Docker Desktop with UX feature parity on all 3 desktop platforms would give us a consistent platform to help users work on whatever host they're on at the time. We would need to be able to add menu items, and more UX for specific groups.
Essentially, its about adoption by users that are currently under-served - non-container natives that work on Linux, or Linux Desktop container natives that support OSX and Windows non-container natives

[ohnotnow]

We'd get value from docker desktop being ported to Linux. At the moment when we are getting people up to speed we have a constant 'If you're on Windows or Mac, click this, press that.... But if you're on Linux then ....'. Having one straightforward go-to set of instructions would help give us a nice consistent on-boarding process and help dev's and sysadmins share the same knowledge across platforms.

[ibnesayeed]

@412PIT: Could you comment on how many of your team members, friends, other developers you know use Linux on their local desktop/remote dev environment?

If you were to believe Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020, almost 27% developers who responded to the survey use Linux as their primary operating system (almost same as MacOS).

[marchesir]

id love to see docker desktop Linux, but i use the CLI most of the time personally. Its not a deal breaker for me but would love to see it as it gives us on Linux an option and for Docker having 1 unified UI would be easier to manage but we need to be careful and not have poor performance as a result.

[jacobus]

Docker started on Linux, but now the Linux community needs to beg to have Docker tooling on par with Windows and Mac.

So sad.

[BenMorel]

A few months later... any update?

[JohnFajardo]

Dropping in to add to the request. Dev team of 88 people.

[erwanriou]

Just following this thread after the issue on Mac on the 3.2.0 Wanted to say here also that the only thing that retain me to use ubuntu is actually docker desktop that have an AMAZING KUBERNETES INTEGRATION. And i am really not super fond of minikube.

We would release a linux version that i would just sell my MAC and go back on my beloved ubuntu.

[kmanwar89]

I'm just getting started with Docker and, while I love the power and flexibility of the CLI, I don't think it's unreasonable to have a common toolset across all three OS's to help bring new users into the fray. If/when they decide they want to use the CLI, leave that decision up to the individual developer.

Cross-platform apps are very common these days, and with frameworks like Electron, there's little excuse to not have all three.

[MestreLion]

After 1 year, this is not even on the roadmap??? Not even with a "Investigating" status?

[SalahAdDin]

This never won't be, isn't it?

[shahidcodes]

It won't be, we are linux user, expected to work on cli. UI is only for Mac/Windows.

P.S. Pun Intended

[PavelSosin-320]

@shahidcodes The container (OCI) management / runtime tool for Linux is called Podman. It is built on a different concept: if 99% OCI images are Linux-based and the developer doesn't need sophisticated and heavy resource management then there is no reason to build tools on top of Linux. It is much easy to fit Linux to run OCI containers. Pure Linux style CLI is for those who don't need GUI..
They don't conflict, share parts of code but address different ecosystems.

[MestreLion]

It won't be, we are linux user, expected to work on cli. UI is only for Mac/Windows.

Wrong. We are Linux developers, expected to have full features, in parity with other platforms.

A GUI is a tool like any other, and it's almost insulting Docker developed a tool for other platforms but not for Linux, specially considering docker started in Linux.

[danmcadams]

@grealish thank you for the feature idea! Could you comment on how many of your team members, friends, other developers you know use Linux on their local desktop/remote dev environment?

For us it's 50%. All of my developer friends use Linux.

[marchesir]

well it would be cool to have same featuers as windows/mac but most linux devs are more command line users so if we could at least get isolated docker experience (inside super micro vm like mac/windows) from base os like windows/mac this would be cool as a start and no need to replay on package manager for keeping offical docker upto date.

[PaluMacil]

I really don't think it's totally accurate to say that most Linux devs prefer commandline. It's true that most are proficient in commandline, there are some that use VIM, and many server maintenance activities are often over SSH on a Linux box, but there are a lot of activities that devs on Linux want to use a GUI for just as much as someone on another os. I'm not using a GUI web browser on Ubuntu (my OS of choice since 2008). I'm not that much of a commandline guru at all, and I use Goland for my IDE, prefer Wireshark to Tshark, and I would very much appreciate a Docker Desktop dashboard to see my images and containers for easy management just like I can do when I work on a Mac or Windows machine. Thinking it isn't useful to me because I'm a Linux user is nonsense and ignores the ongoing feedback here.

[marchesir]

yes id agree what you said and sure it would be nice to have parirty with mac/windows :)

[PavelSosin-320]

The "traditional" containerized applications developers' approach is to be platform's agnostic. The best choice for GUI is the Web GUI ! There are several products available, from Portainer to Prometeus . Some of them are installed by default with the Orchestration engine. It's hard to compare between capabilities of these products and Docker-for-win.

[rapha8l]

Portainer seems nice, but it's a docker image that runs docker management, which is a bit like a chicken-and-egg situation

[juanluisbaptiste]

The "traditional" containerized applications developers' approach is to be platform's agnostic. The best choice for GUI is the Web GUI ! There are several products available, from Portainer to Prometeus . Some of them are installed by default with the Orchestration engine. It's hard to compare between capabilities of these products and Docker-for-win.

They have different use cases. Portainer is more of a production system management tool that can ease some administration tasks, docker desktop is more oriented for image developers or newbie users that are just learning. I develop images in linux and the closest thing I have found to docker desktop is lazydocker, which it is of great help while testing. Being able to quickly enter to or inspect the configuration of a container, looking at logs in one place, resource usage statistics, image administration, etc is of great help. Using portainer for that would be overkill.

[PavelSosin-320]

Here is the list of Alternatives, most of them can run on the Linux out-of-the-box: Alternative Docker GUI/Shells. For Docker like any OCI engine, Windows is an obstacle, not a benefit. Docker-for-win bypasses this obstacle, but for the enormous price of separate VM creation and broken networking. Who uses Linux distro like Ubuntu, Centos, Debian, Fedora, etc. can install an Up-to-date Docker version from the repository in one click, with or without Orchestration, without any separate VM, most modern OCI runtime like CRI-O, Crun, as a server or serverless, community or enterprise support.

[PavelSosin-320]

@rapha8l Docker is a standard Linux package available for all modern Server/Desktop Linux distro out-of-the-box. Search docker-ce in the repository corresponding to your distro.

[shahidcodes]

while we are waiting, I might drop this link (https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/search-gui-docker) for alternative of docker desktop. My personal preference is Portainer (not opensource) and UI For Docker an open source web based UI

[SalahAdDin]

while we are waiting, I might drop this link (https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/search-gui-docker) for alternative of docker desktop. My personal preference is Portainer (not opensource) and UI For Docker an open source web based UI

UI for Docker was deprecated in favor of Portainer.

[juanluisbaptiste]

while we are waiting, I might drop this link (https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/search-gui-docker) for alternative of docker desktop. My personal preference is Portainer (not opensource) and UI For Docker an open source web based UI

Why do you say portainer is not open source ? portainer-ce code is available here in github and is licensed under a zlib license which is fully compatble with GPL. They have a business version built on top of it but saying that portainer is not open source because of that is completely misleading.

[shahidcodes]

while we are waiting, I might drop this link (https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/search-gui-docker) for alternative of docker desktop. My personal preference is Portainer (not opensource) and UI For Docker an open source web based UI

Why do you say portainer is not open source ? portainer-ce code is available here in github and is licensed under a zlib license which is fully compatble with GPL. They have a business version built on top of it but saying that portainer is not open source because of that is completely misleading.

My bad.

[kreaninw]

I am waiting for Docker Desktop on Ubuntu. I hope it happens soon.

[rapha8l]

Till it ever happens, Kitematic is quite good

[marchesir]

i would love to have the docker desktop distributaion on linux, so isolated from os plus docker/k8s integration plus updates managed by docker not os. sure ui would be bonus but not expecting that any time soon.