# Problems with understanding the development of Discourse

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/problems-with-understanding-the-development-of-discourse/196966>\
**Category:** Development\
**Created:** [July 13, 2021, 9:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/problems-with-understanding-the-development-of-discourse/196966 "2021-07-13T09:22:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mikhail\_Tyuftyaev](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/mikhail_tyuftyaev/32/237998_2.png) [@Mikhail\_Tyuftyaev](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mikhail_Tyuftyaev)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2021, 9:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/problems-with-understanding-the-development-of-discourse/196966/1 "2021-07-13T09:22:34Z")

</div>

Hello everyone.  
I have a discourse installed on my local computer on

[http://localhost:4200/](http://localhost:4200/)

according to [this guide](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beginners-guide-to-install-discourse-on-ubuntu-for-development/14727). Here I develop a discourse, themes and plugins.  
I also have a discourse installed on a virtual machine using docker according to [this guide](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md)  
These installations work wonderfully.

I don’t understand what docker is and why the files on the virtual machine are different from the files on the local computer.

What will happen if you stop docker on a virtual machine using the command `d/shutdown_dev` ?

How can I synchronize these two installations using Git?

Can I install docker on a local machine and for what?

Please help me understand these questions

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/problems-with-understanding-the-development-of-discourse/196966)._