Just to be extra clear here -- this isn't something I "don't have time for" or anything like that. It was an official request that this project finally be laid to rest (months ago, so this PR even suffers from delay).

Additionally, the "maintenance mode" note has been in our repository description since March of 2018, so we're really into two years of this project being publicly stated to be on limited life support (let alone however long it was on life support before that was made clear in the documentation).

For further (explicit) context, Boot2Docker was only really still maintained for Windows 7 and Windows 10 Home users. The former should be off Windows 7 now that it's EOL, and the latter are now supported by Docker Desktop thanks to WSL2 (as noted in the changes in this PR). Docker Toolbox, which is the main way Windows 7 and Windows 10 Home users would've been consuming this hasn't seen a release since 19.03.1 (Jul 31, 2019). Docker Machine is in a similar boat with the last release being Sep 2, 2019.

We've done our best to try and actively encourage folks who need something like this to find other projects like RancherOS, especially for use cases that are outside the narrow focus of a personal machine development VM that this project has had. Hopefully this PR helps give anyone still relying on Boot2Docker the push they need to find something more suitable. ❤️

SGTM

For anyone who can't or does not want to use Docker Desktop for Mac:
mobymac allows for an easy setup of a Docker VM using Virtualbox and NFS mounts.

I previously used docker-machine/boot2docker but after this announcement I switched the project over to use vagrant to install docker into a vanilla debian box. Performance is equal to boot2docker in my measurements, it just takes up a bit more disk space.

Feel free to link to mobymac in the boot2docker README if you like.

So sad to see this deprecated. Docker-Toolbox is still way faster and way more reliable than docker for windows.
Using hyper-v on a windows 10 decreases whole system performance so much. (As the whole windows10 runs as a vm).

@tekook are you using the new WSL2 backend? https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/wsl/ we're working closely with Microsoft to improve performance issues; if you have more details about the performance issues you're seeing (and steps to reproduce), feel free to open a ticket in the Docker for Windows issue tracker; https://github.com/docker/for-win/issues

@thaJeztah wsl2 is unusable while sharing data between host and vm (see microsoft/WSL#4197). The performance is slow as hell.

The "old" backend (docker) utilizes a hyper-v vm, thus turning the whole system into a vm thus slowing down the whole system and makes it impossible to create x64 vm with (e.g) vmware workstation.

This makes docker-for-windows impossible for my use case (since I need to boot multiple x64vms via workstation while deving)

@tekook thanks; yes, performance in sharing between the Windows filesystem (compared to sharing from Linux / WSL2) is something currently being looked at by the Windows team.

I wonder if this had some interest for running Docker from a USB key without admin privileges using Qemu to provide a local Docker server for things like Codewind. When you come to something like a school where they are used to swap your lab randomly this is just what your teacher needs.

For me a showstopper would be docker/for-mac#180 where the real client ip is never passed to the container. Serious problem when validating htaccess rules, modsecurity or the like

I wonder if this had some interest for running Docker from a USB key without admin privileges using Qemu to provide a local Docker server for things like Codewind. When you come to something like a school where they are used to swap your lab randomly this is just what your teacher needs.

@TWINGSISTER thanks for the feedback; the primary goal of this project was to have a desktop environment to run Docker on non-Linux environments. While there could be other use-cases, those were not the main focus, and with Docker Desktop maturing, maintaining both projects couldn't really be warranted. That said; the code in this repository is open-source, so Codewind could still make use of it (or perhaps a solution based on https://github.com/linuxkit/linuxkit would fit their needs).

Also, feel free to open a ticket in Docker's public roadmap: https://github.com/docker/roadmap to describe your use-case and why Docker Desktop cannot address that use case. Having a ticket there can help getting it being considered and prioritised if there's interest.

For me a showstopper would be docker/for-mac#180 where the real client ip is never passed to the container. Serious problem when validating htaccess rules, modsecurity or the like

@logopk thanks for bringing that up. The Docker Desktop team is aware of that limitation and I was told there's an existing internal ticket. To help getting that prioritised, I would also recommend opening a ticket in the public roadmap (if none exists yet) https://github.com/docker/roadmap. If you do, I'd recommend describing your use-case, include a link to the docker for mac issue (docker/for-mac#180) (and perhaps "announce" it there as well, so that others can add their use-case and/or up-vote the ticket).

@tianon : thanks for being open about the project future, wish something similarly straight-forward could be added to the docker-machine repository too (https://github.com/docker/machine) as well - instead of some undefined "maintenance mode"...

Docker Machine is in a similar boat with the last release being Sep 2, 2019.

And thanks for maintaining! So long, and thanks for all the fish

Just FYI, I've pushed out a final-final release at https://github.com/boot2docker/boot2docker/releases/tag/v19.03.12 (especially to get #1403 in a released version). ❤️

Just to be extra clear here -- this isn't something I "don't have time for" or anything like that. It was an official request that this project finally be laid to rest (months ago, so this PR even suffers from delay).

Additionally, the "maintenance mode" note has been in our repository description since March of 2018, so we're really into two years of this project being publicly stated to be on limited life support (let alone however long it was on life support before that was made clear in the documentation).

For further (explicit) context, Boot2Docker was only really still maintained for Windows 7 and Windows 10 Home users. The former should be off Windows 7 now that it's EOL, and the latter are now supported by Docker Desktop thanks to WSL2 (as noted in the changes in this PR). Docker Toolbox, which is the main way Windows 7 and Windows 10 Home users would've been consuming this hasn't seen a release since 19.03.1 (Jul 31, 2019). Docker Machine is in a similar boat with the last release being Sep 2, 2019.

We've done our best to try and actively encourage folks who need something like this to find other projects like RancherOS, especially for use cases that are outside the narrow focus of a personal machine development VM that this project has had. Hopefully this PR helps give anyone still relying on Boot2Docker the push they need to find something more suitable. heart

I would not recommend switching to RancherOS, as it is also being phased out, (See: rancher/os#3000).

Disclaimer: I recently started working for Rancher Labs. However, I've also been following this space for some time as an open source maintainer for various projects.

We've done our best to try and actively encourage folks who need something like this to find other projects like RancherOS, especially for use cases that are outside the narrow focus of a personal machine development VM that this project has had. Hopefully this PR helps give anyone still relying on Boot2Docker the push they need to find something more suitable. heart

I would not recommend switching to RancherOS, as it is also being phased out, (See: rancher/os#3000).

Disclaimer: I recently started working for Rancher Labs. However, I've also been following this space for some time as an open source maintainer for various projects.

FYI for those who think like me that RancherOS was best OS ever made and was very disappointed to see it to get deprecated. I decided to fork it to name BurmillaOS and we recently released our first version which continues directly from there where RancherOS ended. That community is currently still small but growing.