What combinations of listed learning environment requirements for this course work together?

The course requirements listed for this course under 01 - Introduction are: Hardware/Software Requirements
Hardware:
A laptop/desktop with: - 8 GB Memory (RAM) - 4 Cores - 20GB of free space.
Software:
A web browser - Google Account/Google Cloud Account - Terminal software, e.g. iTerm, Bash, ConEmu - Text editor.
Lab Environment
If using a cloud provider like GCP or AWS, you should be able to complete the lab exercises using the free tier or credits provided to you. However, you may incur charges if you exceed the credits initially allocated by the cloud provider, or if the cloud provider’s terms and conditions change.

The next section that addresses this is chapter 03 Creating the learning environment. There are sections for installing docker desktop on mac, a mention of doing same on windows if you prefer, how to create a google cloud account, how to install Docker on GCP, and how to install it on a Linux VM, and then Lab1

Do I need all these things, ie, I need a laptop with Docker installed, or can I just have it installed on my Linux VM and use a terminal to access that, and Do I need a GCP account if I have a VMware VM? what OS for Linux works best for this class? Pros cons, etc? Do I need Docker installed both on the PC and the Lab environment, or can Docker on the PC BE the lab environment?

I am guessing I need two things, a user interface of some kind which could be any windows or mac pc, with some way to connect to the "Lab environment" for which I will need some kind of VM (or more?), either on GCP some other cloud provider, a vm or physical hardware capable of running docker, or maybe I can just run docker on my PC and use it for the interface and the Lab environment. Is that right?

Thanks and best regards,
Don