How to setup Docker on Ubuntu WSL

Before we begin

This guide only applies if we will not be using Docker Desktop on Windows (which I really do not recommend because of the I/O latency).

Requirements

Make sure you have all the stuff needed for this setup:

• A computer that supports virtualization
• Windows 11
• WSL 2

Here are the steps

1. Clean up existing docker installation (if there is any)

sudo apt remove docker.io docker-doc docker-compose docker-compose-v2 podman-docker containerd runc

2. Download and run the official docker installer script (be sure to verify the file you download before running them).

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sudo sh get-docker.sh

3. Verify if docker is installed

docker --version
docker compose --version

4. Create the docker group and add current user to it

sudo groupadd docker
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

5. Update your ubuntu defaults to use iptables

sudo update-alternatives --config iptables

6. Restart WSL. Open a Powershell and run the following command:

wsl --shutdown
wsl 

Final steps

Now that we got docker installed, try running the following command:

docker run hello-world

We should see a text that says the installation is working correctly.