Custom kernels on WSL

Warning

Using a custom kernel with Docker Desktop on WSL 2 is not officially supported and may cause issues with Docker Desktop startup or operation.

Docker Desktop depends on several kernel features built into the default WSL 2 Linux kernel distributed by Microsoft.

However, in some cases it may be necessary to run custom kernels; Docker Desktop does not block their use, and some users have reported success using them.

Recommendations if you must use a custom kernel

If you choose to use a custom kernel, start from the kernel tree distributed by Microsoft from their official repository and then add the features you need on top of that.

Also:

• Use the same kernel version as the one distributed by the latest WSL2 release. You can find the version by running wsl.exe --system uname -r in a terminal.
• Make sure that your kernel build environment includes pahole and its version is properly reflected in the corresponding kernel config (CONFIG_PAHOLE_VERSION).