i just discovered that installing the docker desktop app places things in a folder ~/.docker that causes commands invoking docker to look there for the docker socket.
docker: Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///home/me/.docker/desktop/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?.
of course, the socket is /var/run/docker.sock for a standard system installation.
rm -rf ~/.docker
and it then tries to connect to the socket in /var/run instead.
#docker
