Minikube on Windows 11 Home Edition with WSL2 Workaround.

3 min readSep 25, 2022

As per the title, this will walk through on how to get Minikube (single Kubernetes cluster) working on Windows 11 Home Edition.

Hyper-V is not available on Windows 11 Home edition so this is the workaround using WSL 2 and Docker.

Quick Intro:

Both Kubernetes and Minikube are free and open-source software.

Kubernetes (k8) is a Docker or Linux container orchestration solution.

Minikube, on the other hand, is described as a “Local Kubernetes engine.” It implements a local Kubernetes cluster on macOS, Linux, and Windows. Its purpose is to be the tool for developing local Kubernetes applications and to support all Kubernetes capabilities that are appropriate.

Minikube is a fitting name that tells what the tool accomplishes; It takes Kubernetes’ massive cloud scale and compresses it down to fit in your laptop. But don’t mistake this for a lack of strength or functionality, Minikube can accomplish a lot.

Reference Links:
Kubernetes: https://kubernetes.io
Minikube: https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io
k8 vs minikube: https://kuberty.io/blog/minikube-vs-kubectl/

Minikube Installation

What you’ll need

2 CPUs or more
2GB of free memory
20GB of free disk space
Internet connection
Container or virtual machine manager, such as Docker, Hyperkit, Hyper-V, KVM, Parallels, Podman, VirtualBox, or VMware Fusion/Workstation

Now for Windows 11 Home Edition, we have a problem. Hyper-V is only available on Pro version. So here is the workaround.

Requirement:

Install Docker 18.09 or higher (20.10 or higher is recommended) https://www.docker.com/ — click on Download Docker Desktop.
amd64 or arm64 systems
WSL 2 install (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install)

Once you install WSL 2 and Docker, you should be able to have Virtualization running now on your laptop. Your windows feature should be like the below.