Docker Desktop for Linux — download & install

Supported distributions

Official packages are published for the following distributions in 2026. Other distros can usually run Docker Engine directly without Docker Desktop on top.

• Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04 — .deb package, x86_64 and arm64.
• Debian 11 and 12 — .deb package, x86_64.
• Fedora 39+ — .rpm package, x86_64.
• RHEL 9 — .rpm package via the Docker repository.
• Arch Linux — community package via the AUR. The source build is packaged by Arch maintainers.

Should you download Docker Desktop or Docker Engine on Linux?

Docker Engine alone is the right pick for servers, CI runners, and most production hosts. It runs natively against the Linux kernel, has zero VM overhead, and is fully open-source under Apache 2.0. There is no Docker Desktop license to worry about.

Docker Desktop is for developer workstations. It runs the engine inside a managed Linux VM (the same model as on Windows and macOS) so the experience matches your colleagues on other operating systems. You get the GUI, Kubernetes toggle, Docker Scout, and synchronized updates — at the cost of an extra ~600 MB of disk and the licensing rules.

You can install both: Docker Desktop on your laptop, Docker Engine on the servers it deploys to. They don’t conflict.

System requirements

• 64-bit CPU with KVM virtualization support.
• 4 GB RAM minimum, 8 GB recommended.
• systemd as the init system.
• GNOME, KDE, or MATE desktop environment recommended.
• ~6 GB free disk space for the VM image and base layers.

The full requirements per distro live on the system requirements page.

Installing the package

On Debian/Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install ./docker-desktop-4.42.0-amd64.deb

On Fedora:

$ sudo dnf install ./docker-desktop-4.42.0-x86_64.rpm

The detailed walk-through with KVM checks, post-install configuration, and verification is on the Install Docker Desktop on Linux page.

Verifying SHA-256 checksums

The publisher posts a SHA-256 checksum for every Linux package alongside the release notes. Compare it against the value you compute locally:

$ sha256sum ./docker-desktop-4.42.0-amd64.deb
8f3a... <published value>  docker-desktop-4.42.0-amd64.deb

If the values match, the file is authentic and untampered. If they don’t, delete it and re-download from the official URL.

After install: starting the service

Docker Desktop on Linux runs as a per-user systemd service. Launch the GUI from your application menu, or start the service manually:

$ systemctl --user start docker-desktop
$ systemctl --user status docker-desktop

Once it’s running, the docker CLI talks to the Desktop engine by default. The first getting-started container walks you through running hello-world and a real Nginx server in five minutes.

Common Docker Desktop Linux download issues

• “Could not start kvm: permission denied” — your user isn’t in the kvm group yet. Run sudo usermod -aG kvm $USER and log back in.
• Conflict with an existing Docker Engine install — Docker Desktop adds a separate per-user context. If your docker command still hits the system engine, run docker context use desktop-linux.
• GPU passthrough doesn’t work — NVIDIA Container Toolkit support inside Docker Desktop on Linux is improving but limited. For GPU-heavy workflows, Docker Engine on the host with the NVIDIA toolkit is still the safer pick.