Hey everyone,
I've got Docker Desktop up and running on my PC, which has an Intel i7-7500U processor and I'm using Linux Mint as my OS. I keep running into an issue where I get the error "KVM is not enabled" when I try to use it. After digging a bit deeper, I found that my CPU seems to not support KVM extensions, as indicated by the message: "INFO: Your CPU does not support KVM extensions" and "KVM acceleration can NOT be used". I'm starting to feel a bit stuck because I've searched online and haven't found a lot of workarounds. I'd appreciate any help or advice you might have! Thanks!
3 Answers
Your CPU actually supports virtualization, you just need to enable VT-x in your BIOS settings. This might not be directly related to Docker since it doesn’t require full virtualization, but it can give you a smoother experience with tools that do.
Honestly, if you’re on a Linux host, you might want to skip Docker Desktop entirely. Instead, just use the native Docker Engine and Compose. You won’t need KVM support with that setup, as it doesn't rely on a VM to run.
Yeah, I get that Docker is aiming for a consistent experience with Desktop, but it really shouldn’t create this many issues. They should definitely consider letting the GUI work with a native runtime when it's available.
A better approach would be to uninstall Docker Desktop. You can check out the installation steps for Docker Engine directly on their official site. Remember to remove any conflicting packages first with this command: for pkg in docker.io docker-doc docker-compose docker-compose-v2 podman-docker containerd runc; do sudo apt-get remove $pkg; done
But it is related here because the original poster is trying to use Docker Desktop, which does run a small Linux VM, so it does need real virtualization to function correctly.