[Docker Open Source] Deprecate Docker Toolbox

[nebuk89]

Tell us about your request

Docker Toolbox https://github.com/docker/toolbox was an early solution for users to work with Docker on Windows and Mac providing the bundling of a selection of tools to enable this. This was superseded by Docker Desktop, but initially lacked support for Windows Home. With WSL 2's release on Windows Home Docker Desktop is now supported on Windows Home - our main user of Docker Toolbox.
We have not been maintaining this actively for many years, and would like to formally deprecate it.

If you are an active user of Docker Toolbox please let is know here what your use case is.

Which service(s) is this request for?

Docker Toolbox

Tell us about the problem you're trying to solve. What are you trying to do, and why is it hard?
Make it clearer which open source tools we are developing actively, focus on tools that are being used, have active communities and reduce duplication of tools.

Are you currently working around the issue?
We are not maintaining this actively, but have not made it clear what the status and roadmap is.

Additional context
https://www.docker.com/blog/docker-desktop-for-windows-home-is-here/

[mikesir87]

I have several college students that used Docker Toolbox this past semester because they were on Home edition and not the latest version and it was their only option. Seeing that WSL2 is available for all with the latest version, it makes sense to deprecate.

I'd recommend not pulling releases (making it disappear), as there are always going to be folks on older versions of Windows that can't upgrade for various reasons. But, I think it's fine to run deprecated software in those cases.

[kimyu92]

AMD hackintosh users are relying Docker Toolbox on Mac OS to spin up docker containers. It would be great to see Docker Desktop can support AMD processors on Mac OS one day.

Sample workflow for now.
https://github.com/sergeycherepanov/homebrew-docker-virtualbox

[psychemedia]

We have been using Virtualbox to deliver virtual machines to distance learning students for several years, and are looking to move to Docker from October 2020. Our students are required to provide their own computers to a minimum specification, but the bar is set low: computers that are several years old and running what we might class as "legacy operating systems". I would expect that a not insignificant proportion of out students will be running old and basic versions of Windows without WSL 2 support. For those students, running the Docker Toolbox is the only solution available to many of them.

[nebuk89]

@psychemedia I would love to have a chat about your students, if you would be interested drop me an email on bengotch@docker.com :)

[dan-mba]

There is no WSL support for Windows 8.1 which is still supported by Microsoft until Jan 2023.

Will there be any supported way to run Docker on Windows 8.1 in 2021?

[ajotaos]

My company makes active use of Docker Toolbox in Mac desktops, we have modern desktops but most of us, me included, prefer to use the toolbox as it provides minimal tooling (e.g. docker-machine, docker). I don't make use of the UI and prefer not to download an additional application. I would love there was some way to install only the runtime without downloading an app.

[Jimbly]

My company uses VirtualBox for development and testing, and it appears there's still no good way to have both VirtualBox and Docker Desktop:

• Enabling Hyper-V breaks old versions of VirtualBox, and reduces performance and stability of new versions, so is not a reasonable option at this time
• It looks like there's a "Docker for Windows Home" advertised (unclear if it would work on Windows 10 Pro w/o Hyper-V?), but I can't actually find it, the docs link to https://hub.docker.com/editions/community/docker-ce-desktop-windows/ which says "Requires Microsoft Windows 10 Professional or Enterprise 64-bit. For previous versions get Docker Toolbox." and just errors with "requires Hyper-V enabled" when ran.
  • That being said, the docs also say it requires "Windows version 2004" which we have not yet rolled out, and will not for quite some time, the Docker docs claim "Docker supports Docker Desktop on Windows based on Microsoft’s support lifecycle for Windows 10 operating system" and the lifecycle for Windows 10 lists Windows version 1909 as valid until May 2021 (or 2022 for Enterprise) - I realize it's not claiming all Docker tools follow the Windows 10 lifecycle, but it would be nice to have a supported option.

[nebuk89]

@Jimbly sorry we haven't updated the Hub page yet, the docs are correct. And with MSFTs recent backport of WSL 2 Docker Desktop is supported through WSL2 on Windows home 1903 and up.
https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/install-windows-home/

Thanks!

[whut]

So here we use VirtualBox, and sometimes other virtualization solutions, but not Hyper-V, as it is less supported and VMs are slower under it. Until now Docker Toolbox integrated nicely with our workflow. If it is deprecated, we will just drop running Docker on Windows, and use a Linux VM in VirtualBox.

Sad to hear that maintaining integration with VirtualBox in addition to Hyper-V is such big effort, that it must be avoided. I wonder what is in it that requires specific work, except of course for calling VirtualBox to create a VM and expose a port.

Could you at least provide Windows binaries for docker client only?

[nebuk89]

@whut yes we are looking at what we do for Windows binaries and will follow up with something in this space.

Closing as we have now marked the repo as deprecated. This does not stop people using what we had before but is to be clear that we will no longer be fixing/providing updates to Docker Toolbox.

[Gettlar]

Hi nebuk89,

thank you for docker toolbox that I am currently still using on Windows 10 Home. I'm considering installing Docker desktop, however I'm not sure if I necessarily need to uninstall docker toolbox before doing so.

Hence my quick questions:

1. Can docker desktop be installed alongside docker toolbox?
2. Does docker toolbox need to be uninstalled first?

Thank you very much in advance for your time and advice!

[Jimbly]

@Gettlar
You do not need to uninstall Docker Toolbox to install Docker Desktop. However, at the time of deprecating Docker Toolbox, the version of VirtualBox that it used only worked with Hyper-V disabled, and Docker Desktop only works with Hyper-V enabled, so you needed to enable/disable that and restart Windows to switch between them. AFAIK, the newer versions of VirtualBox now work with Hyper-V enabled, so you could theoretically switch between Desktop and Toolbox (assuming it works with that VirtualBox versions). It might be useful to keep both installed for troubleshooting, as not all Docker images work / work the same on Desktop as they did on Toolbox.

[Gettlar]

@Jimbly
Thank you for your quick response! I will try it out. !

Have a nice day and stay well !