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where is one of a number of possible choices. These are the most common (and should be self-explanatory):

• docker
• kvm2
• hyperv

Other drivers are available depending on the platform and one’s installed software:

• virtualbox – Uses VirtualBox as a VM provider. This is a useful option on Windows if you are unable to use Hyper-V (e.g., if you’re running Windows Home). Note that Minikube will not install VirtualBox; you must set that up yourself.
• podman – An alternative container runtime to Docker that uses a daemonless architecture and does not require root privileges. Note that this driver is still considered experimental and should not be used in production.
• vmware – Driver for all VMware-based hypervisors. (Installing the actual VMware software is your responsibility.)
• hyperkit – Driver for the open source hypervisor for MacOS. This is installed with Docker Desktop, so if you’re already using Docker, you might not need to use this.
• parallels – Driver for Parallels Desktop for Mac, which does not require VT-x hardware support.
• ssh – Allows you to run on a user-supplied VM over ssh. Note that when you run minkube start, you must pass the address of the VM with a command-line switch, e.g., --ssh-ip-address=vm.machine.com.
• none – Use a bare-metal driver, typically on Linux. For advanced or experimental use only.

You can also supply a driver by using a command-line switch whenever you start Minikube:

This is useful if you need to temporarily switch drivers to test something. For the most part, though, you’ll want to set a driver to use full-time as part of your standard workflow.

Starting Minikube

After you have installed Minikube and configured its default driver, you can start the cluster by typing minikube start. The startup process may take a little time, as Minikube may need to fetch images and configure them.

You can then use kubectl to work with Minikube just as you would with Kubernetes.

Note that rather than type kubectl alone, you may need to prefix it with minikube and use the -- switch to pass parameters along. For instance, instead of kubectl create deployment (plus other options for a deployment), you would type minikube kubectl -- create deployment.

Minikube tries to stay up-to-date with the most recent version of Kubernetes. If you need to work with an earlier version, you can do so by specifying a version with the start command:

Minikube dashboard

Minikube comes with a web-based dashboard that provides a total view of the cluster: workloads, services, configuration information, cluster data, custom resource definitions, and lots more.

To open the dashboard in the default browser, simply type minikube dashboard at the command line. Note that if you close the command session where you’ve launched the dashboard, the dashboard will shut down automatically, unless you launch the dashboard as a detached process.

The Minikube dashboard provides an all-in-one interactive view for your desktop Kubernetes setup.

Using Minikube instead of Docker Desktop

Because of the changes in the licensing and costs of Docker Desktop, many developers are exploring alternatives. Minikube can function as a fair replacement for Docker Desktop without too much additional work. Here’s how:

1. If you already have Docker Desktop installed, remove it and reboot.
2. Check that you have the environment variable DOCKER_BUILDKIT set to 1. (This enables BuildKit for better performance during the build process.)
3. Install the Docker CLI -- not Docker Desktop or the Docker daemon, just the command line tool. One way to do this is with a package manager — e.g., using Chocolatey on Windows.
4. Launch Minikube normally. If you want to build Docker images, you need to use the Docker driver; if you just want to run containers, you can use a hypervisor or VM.
5. If you don’t plan to use Kubernetes (just run containers as-is without orchestration features), you can use minikube start --no-kubernetes as the command to start Minikube.
6. Run minikube docker-env (you may need to do this as admin) to generate a list of instructions needed to configure Docker to use Minikube as its runtime host. These instructions vary by operating system.
7. After you follow those instructions, the docker command-line tool should use Minikube as its host. You can verify this by typing docker ps and seeing if you get a list of running containers.

Note that you will need to invoke the commands described by Minkube in step 6 for each command session where you want to use Docker.

Serdar Yegulalp is a senior writer at InfoWorld, focused on machine learning, containerization, devops, the Python ecosystem, and periodic reviews.

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