If you use Docker and get it running while using Docker Desktop, you might run into this error:

docker.errors.DockerException: Error while fetching server API version: ('Connection aborted.', FileNotFoundError(2, 'No such file or directory'))

That’s because Docker Desktop is well, not running. What if you could run Docker without needing Docker Desktop?

Check if the service is running

sudo systemctl status docker

Verify if the Docker socket exists by running:

ls -l /var/run/docker.sock
output: srw-rw---- 1 root docker 0 ... /var/run/docker.sock

If not, start the Docker service or reinstall Docker. If docker --version is not around, do same.

On ubuntu/linux mint verify if you have the correct permission

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

You can also try restarting the service

sudo systemctl restart docker

If you get when running docker version

Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           27.3.1
 API version:       1.47
 Go version:        go1.22.7
 Git commit:        ce12230
 Built:             Fri Sep 20 11:41:11 2024
 OS/Arch:           linux/amd64
 Context:           desktop-linux
Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///home/appinv/.docker/desktop/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?

Then, temporarily add this env var

export DOCKER_HOST=unix:///var/run/docker.sock

Also do the above if getting

Dec 03 13:44:47 appinv-machine dockerd[22962]: time="2024-12-03T13:44:47.469983115+04:00" level=info msg="API listen on /run/docker.sock"

Add permanently if fixed.

If you get an error like the below which occurs as a result of authing through Docker Desktop

ERROR: failed to solve: ...: failed to resolve source metadata for docker.io/...: error getting credentials - err: exec: "docker-credential-desktop": executable file not found in $PATH, out: `
ERROR: Service '...' failed to build : Build failed

Edit this file

nano ~/.docker/config.json

Replace "credsStore": "desktop" with "credsStore": ""

Else login throught docker hub.

Hope it helps1