Ubuntu Error "The command 'docker' could not be found in this WSL 2 distro."

"Docker Desktop" should integrate into WSL without additional configuration. Especially, it should not be necessary to append folders to the PATH environment variable.

Of course it must be made sure that "Docker Desktop" as well as the certain WSL distribution are set up for WSL2: In "Docker Desktop" settings "General/Use the WSL2 based engine" must be checked and wsl -l -v should list version 2. If the latter is not true, it can be fixed by wsl --set-version <distribution> 2, where <distribution> is the name from the previous list. Note that "Ubuntu" and "Ubuntu-22.04" (for example) are different.

"Docker Desktop" normally integrates with the default distribution. It can be seen from the asterisk in wsl -l -v which one had been chosen. For me this once was set to "docker-desktop-data" (probably because "Docker Desktop" had been installed earlier than the distribution). The default distribution can be changed by wsl --set-default <distribution>. Furthermore, in "Resources/WSL integration" of "Docker Desktop" settings, the option "Enable integration with my default WSL distro" must be set.

If another distribution than the default one should use docker as well, it needs to be selected explicitely in the list of distributions of "Resources/WSL integration". Press "Refresh" if that other distribution had been installed recently while "Docker Desktop" was already running.

"Integration" means, as far as I can tell, that a link /usr/bin/docker, pointing to /mnt/wsl/docker-desktop/cli-tools/usr/bin/docker, is created automatically. Since /mnt/wsl/docker-desktop/cli-tools/usr/bin/docker seems to be available in all distributions regardless of the integration setting, the presence (or not) of /mnt/wsl/docker-desktop/cli-tools/usr/bin and its content might help to analyse the problem. There should be docker, docker-compose and others:

ls -l /usr/bin/docker
ls -l /mnt/wsl/docker-desktop/cli-tools/usr/bin

Try to put following line in your Ubuntu's ~/.bashrc

PATH+=":/mnt/c/Program Files/Docker/Docker/Resources/bin"

( It might be /c/Program Files/... depending on your mount point. You can check with the command df )

and start a new bash shell, then run docker.

I was having this problem, so I went to this docker link (your link is broken) and worked through the suggestions.

This worked for me:

1. In PowerShell, type wsl -l -v and you should get something like this:

     NAME                   STATE           VERSION
   * Ubuntu                 Running         2
     docker-desktop         Running         2
     Ubuntu-20.04           Running         2
     docker-desktop-data    Running         2
   

2. Go into the Docker Desktop Settings -> Resources -> WSL integration.

3. Select the WSL 2 distro you are using from the above list (e.g. Ubuntu 20.04 in my case) and Apply & Restart.

Now running the version command works as expected in my distribution, and I have all of the functionality required from within the WSL terminal.

:~$ docker -v

Docker version 20.10.16, build aa7e414

I was able to fix this by taking the below steps but it required some work arounds because I was unable to click-install the necessary WSL2 Linux kernel update after downloading.

Then I had to complete this process.

Then I had go to the PowerShell command line and navigate to the location of the above WSL Update and run the following (in administrator mode-- and not in the Linux command line):

& '.\wsl_update_x64.msi'

That was the only way I could successfully install the update

Then at Powershell command line (in administrator mode-- and not the linux command line), I ran

wsl --set-version Ubuntu 2

per instructions here