Docker Client MX

WSL, the comic

A kitchen in your own house.

The same cooks as the other comics, in the kitchen most of them started in: a room of your own house, built by WSL. The chef knows how the room is set up, puts the lights back on after the night, and makes room when the pantry is full.

1 A kitchen in your own house

On Windows, Docker usually lives in the basement of Docker Desktop. With WSL, the kitchen is a room of your own house: a Linux distro with Docker Engine in it, and no Docker Desktop at all.
My own kitchen,in my own house.
The WSL page shows how the room is set up: which WSL, which distro, the network, and how much memory and how many processors the kitchen may use.
WSL 2 · Ubuntunetwork: mirrored8 GB · 6 coresThis isour room.
The house rules hang on the wall: the .wslconfig. Change one, and the chef shows the change before it is saved, and keeps the old rules next to it.
memory = 8GB→ memory = 12GBTwelve,not eight.And here isthe old one.

2 When the lights stay off

After a night of sleep, WSL now and then wakes up without its lights: every docker command hangs, and the cooks stand in the dark.
Hello?Lights?
Fifteen seconds after waking, the chef checks whether Docker answers. Still dark? A message on your phone, with one button: Restart WSL.
Still dark.Restart?Yes,restart.
Restart WSL closes the house for a moment, starts the distro again and brings Docker back up. The lights come on, and the cooks are back at their stations.
We’re back!

3 Room to breathe

The pantry only grows: what you threw away still takes up room in the disk file of the distro. Shrink disk file tidies up, closes the house for a moment, packs everything tight and opens again.
17 GB12 GBSame food,less room.
A door for the neighbours: share a port on your network, and guests from the other rooms of the house — your phone, another laptop — can come in. On private networks only, unless you say otherwise.
8080From theother room!Come in.
A sign on the front door: DOCKER_HOST. Programs on Windows, such as your IDE or testcontainers, find the kitchen without asking the way.
DOCKER_HOSTThe sign sayswhere we are.
In Docker Client MX: a kitchen in your own house, house rules you can read and change, lights that come back after the night, and room to breathe.
THE END

The cheat sheet

Every picture above, in the app’s words.

The kitchen in your own house
Docker Engine in a WSL distro, without Docker Desktop
The board with the set-up
The WSL page: version, distro, network, memory and processors
The house rules
.wslconfig, changed with a preview and a backup
The lights that stay off
WSL hanging after the laptop slept
The call and the switch
A notification, and Restart WSL
The pantry that only grows
The disk file of the distro, and Shrink disk file
The door for the neighbours
A port shared on your network
The sign on the front door
DOCKER_HOST, for programs on Windows
Look after your own kitchen.
Docker in WSL without Docker Desktop: house rules with a preview, the lights back after sleep, a disk file that shrinks, a door for your network, and DOCKER_HOST for Windows.
What the app does with WSL →Connections, the comic →Dashboard, the comic →Download for Windows