Kitematic & Docker for Mac vs. Docker Toolbox

Docker Desktop
1

Hi,

I can’t seem to find an answer to this, my apologies if I’m glossing over it.

I initially installed Docker about 1.5 years ago and worked with it for a while: this was what I think is now called the Docker Toolbox installation.

Last week I looked into using Docker again for another use case. I found that there is now Docker for Mac, got interested, and decided to update my old Docker Toolbox related install.

So far, so good - there’s just one thing that I wondered about. I still have the old Kitematic app from my previous installation of Docker and guessed that I should also update that.
However, it turns out that Kitematic is now part of the Docker Toolbox - but I just learned when updating to Docker for Mac that Docker Toolbox uses a different set of symlinks in /usr/local/bin than Docker for Mac does.

In other words: if I were to update Kitematic by re-installing the Docker Toolbox - wouldn’t that overwrite the /usr/local/bin links again, breaking Docker for Mac?

Other than that, it is also somewhat confusing to read here that Kitematic is a legacy solution and it’s recommended to upgrade to Docker for Mac - which suggests that Kitematic does not provide any added functionality over Docker for Mac - but why then is Kitematic still in the Docker for Mac menu?

1 Like
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I’d like to second this motion. I was about to report it as an issue in the docker for mac github project but thought I’d come to the forum first to see if there was any explanation…

At least there’s someone else who agrees it’s confusing:

So, should I open an issue to remove it or not?

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Opened issue https://github.com/docker/for-mac/issues/3272
Since it doesn’t seem like the forum is visited much…. I can always close it if needed.