Installation: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 15:32, 17 September 2024

This page exists to provide a basic overview to get started. Before actually installing, it can help to skim through the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), as well as to refer to the official installation guide at docs.alpinelinux.org.

Tip: This is a wiki!

If something isn't correct, or is incomplete, you will have to figure it out, or ask for the correct solution in the community.

And then carefully edit the wiki page.

Just as those before who did it for you.

Minimal Hardware Requirements

At least 128 MB of RAM. [A graphical desktop system may require up to 512 minimum.]. Note that an installation itself (from ISO) generally requires at least 320 MB during installation.
At least 0-700 MB space on a writable storage device. [Only required in "sys" or "data" mode installations (explained below). It is optional in "diskless" mode, where it may be used to save newer data and configurations states of a running system.]

Note:

Most of the steps outlined on this page applies to all architectures of Alpine Linux. For more specific installation instructions, refer to their respective pages:

Refer custom installation instructions for headless system, virtualization etc.

Installation Overview

Alpine Linux can be installed and run in three modes i.e Diskless Mode, Data Disk Mode and System Disk Mode. The installation procedure for Alpine Linux requires basic understanding of the three modes explained in brief below:

Diskless Mode

In Diskless mode the entire operating system with all applications are first loaded into RAM and then only run from there. Alpine Linux uses this method to boot the .iso installation images. The setup-alpine script configures the installed system to continue to boot like this if "disk=none" is specified. The mode is extremely fast and can save on unnecessary disk spin-ups, power, and wear. For further info, refer Diskless Mode.

Data Disk Mode

In Data Disk mode also the operating system runs from system RAM, thus it enjoys the same accelerated operation speed as "diskless" mode. However, swap storage and the entire /var directory tree get mounted from a persistent storage device. This mode is useful for having RAM accelerated servers with variable amounts of user-data that exceed the available RAM size. For further info, refer Data Disk Mode.

System Disk Mode

System or sys Disk Mode is the traditional hard-disk install. This mode is used for generic desktop and development machines. Select this method through setup-alpine script, only if you want to use an entire hard disk for Alpine Linux. For all other use cases and further info, refer System Disk Mode.

General course of action

The steps outlined below is common for installing Alpine Linux in all three modes.

Download and verify the downloaded image.
Prepare and verify the Installation media.
Boot the target computer and follow the Installation steps to complete the base configuration i.e complete the pre-setup of "diskless" Alpine Linux system.

Note: It is really helpful for many use cases to first complete the base configuration step, then proceed with installation of the target system with any one of the various alternate courses of action.

Alternate courses of action

Examples of preparation options:

Download and install some specific driver or software tool.
Do a Manual partitioning of the harddisk that avoids overwrite of an entire disk.
Installing something that may be missing in the live system to configure the hardware, e.g. by using the alpine package manager apk.
Use more specific setup-scripts afterwards in order to proceed with the final installation in a custom way.

Examples of proceeding options:

setup-lbu to configure a "local backup" location for the diskless system, and lbu commit to then save the local configuration state.
setup-apkcache to configure a local package cache storage location.
setup-disk to add a "data" mode partition,
Use setup-disk to complete a classic or traditional hard-disk installation using "sys" disk mode onto a partition or to an entire disk.
Use setup-disk to configure RAID, encryption or LVM for both "data" disk and "system" disk mode.
Use setup-disk to Dualboot Alpine Linux along side another operating system.
Use setup-bootable to create a bootable medium to be used with a diskless or data disk-mode installed to (and booting from) a device with a writable filesystem.

There are many more setup-scripts available. All these tools may also be run later to adjust specific configurations. For example, to set up a graphical environment as covered under Post-Installation below.

Preparing for the installation

Downloading installation image

Download the stable-release installation image-file for the target computer's architecture with their corresponding sha256 (checksum) and GPG (signature) files.

Note: Download sha256 (checksum) and GPG (signature) files only from official site and not from mirrors.

Now you have three files of the following format..

alpine-standard-*.iso
alpine-standard-*.iso.sha256
alpine-standard-*.iso.asc

alpine-standard-3.20.3-x86_64.iso is the 3.20.3 version Standard image file in iso format for x86_64 architecture. Image file can also be gz for certain cases.

Verifying downloaded image

The downloaded image-file will be verified for the checksum and GPG signature. This two-stage verification ensures that the downloaded image is safe to use.

Tip: Ensure that all the three downloaded files remain in the same folder. If not, adjust the commands accordingly.

The sha256 checksum verifies the integrity of the downloaded image i.e no modifications occurred during download.

sha256sum -c alpine-*.iso.sha256

The GPG signature verifies the link between the downloaded image to the individual who signed it. Signature verification involves two steps:

Step 1. Download and import the gpg signature from official website

curl https://alpinelinux.org/keys/ncopa.asc | gpg --import ;

Step 2. Verify that the image signature matches with the one downloded in Step 1.

gpg --verify alpine-*.iso.asc alpine-*.iso

There are three utilities involved in the verification stage i.e sha256, curl and gpg. All the three utilities or their equivalents are available in every operating system including Linux, windows, Mac and BSD derivaties.

From Security point of view, if you don't have them already, download and install them first and verify the images before proceeding further.

Preparing installation media

Note: These instructions are exclusively for x86_64 and x86. For ARM boards, see Alpine on ARM.

All data currently on the installation media will be lost, when the Alpine Linux image is written on it. Be extremely careful to correctly identify the device name for the installation media.

In Linux, dd command can write the downloaded image file to the installation media i.e target device. To identify the target device, all connected "bulk storage devices" can be listed with lsblk and blkid.

 # lsblk
 NAME            MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINT
 sdX               0:0    0  64,0G  0 disk  
 ├─sdX1            0:1    0     2G  0 part  
 └─sdX2            0:2    0    30G  0 part  /mnt/sdX2
 
 # blkid
 /dev/sdX1: LABEL="some" UUID="..." TYPE="vfat"
 /dev/sdX2: LABEL="other" UUID="..." TYPE="ext4"

For example, if /dev/sdX is the desired target device, ensure that all mounted partitions of the target device are un-mounted first. In the above case, for device sdX with partitions sdX1 and sdX2, the partition sdX2 needs to be unmounted:

# umount /dev/sdX2

Note: In dd command, do not specify partition number for target device i.e use /dev/sdX and not /dev/sdX1

The syntax for dd command is as follows:

# dd if=<iso-image-file> of=<target-device> bs=4M status=progress; eject <target-device>

If your version of dd does not support the option "status=progress", remove it. The eject command removes the target device from the system and ensures the write cache is completely flushed.

A complete example for dd command with image file alpine-standard-3.20.3-x86_64.iso and target device /dev/sdd is shown below:

Warning: Below command will overwrite data on target device /dev/sdd. Modify if and of according to the name of your image file and target device

# dd if=~/Downloads/alpine-standard-3.20.3-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdd bs=4M status=progress; eject /dev/sdd

In Windows, Rufus has been tested to create bootable USB flash drives and worked for Alpine Linux 3.12.x with the following settings:

Partition scheme: MBR Target system: BIOS or UEFI
File system: FAT32 Cluster size: 4096 bytes (default)

Verifying Installation media

After detaching and re-attaching the device, a bit-wise comparison can verify the data written to the device (instead of just data buffered in RAM). If the comparison terminates with an end-of-file error on the .iso file side, all the contents from the image have been written (and re-read) successfully:

 # cmp ~/Downloads/alpine-standard-3.20.3-x86_64.iso /dev/sdX
 cmp: EOF on alpine-standard-3.20.3-x86_64.iso

Booting Installation Media

Insert the Installation media to a proper drive or port of the computer and turn the machine on, or restart it, if already running.

Note: To successfully boot and install Alpine Linux, disable secure boot in the BIOS. Once Alpine Linux is installed, this can be enabled.

If the computer does not automatically boot from the desired device, one needs to bring up the boot menu and choose the media to boot from. Depending on the computer, the menu may be accessed by repeatedly pressing a key quickly when booting starts. Some computers require that you press the button before starting the computer and hold it down while the computer boots. Typical keys are: F9-F12, sometimes F7 or F8. If these don't bring up the boot menu, it may be necessary to enter the BIOS configuration and adjust the boot settings, for which typical keys are: Del F1 F2 F6 or Esc.

Installation Step Details

Boot Process

The boot process of the alpine installation image first copies the entire operating system into the RAM memory, and then already starts a complete Alpine Linux system from there. It will initially only provide a basic command line environment that does not depend on reading from any (possibly slow) initial boot media, anymore.

Local log-in is possible as the user root. Initially, the root user has no password.

At the command prompt, an interactive script named setup-alpine is available to configure and install the initial Alpine Linux system. Launch the Alpine Linux Installation by running the setup-alpine script :

#setup-alpine

Base configuration

The question-and-answer dialog of setup-alpine takes care of the base configuration.

It allows to configure the system to boot into one of three different Alpine Linux "disk" modes: "diskless"(none), "data" or "sys".

The setup-alpine script offers the following configuration options:

Keyboard Layout (Local keyboard language and usage mode, e.g. us and variant of us-nodeadkeys.)
Hostname (The name for the computer.)
Network (For example, automatic IP address discovery with the "DHCP" protocol.)
DNS Servers (Domain Name Servers to query. If unsure, leave DNS domain name blank and using 9.9.9.9 2620:fe::fe for DNS is typically adequate.)
Root password (the password used to login to the root account)
Timezone (Optionally display times/dates in your local time zone)
HTTP/FTP Proxy (Proxy server to use for accessing the web/ftp. Use "none" for direct connections to websites and FTP servers.)
Mirror (From where to download packages. Choose the organization you trust giving your usage patterns to.)
Setup a user (Setting up a regular user account)
NTP (Network Time Protocol client used for keeping the system clock in sync with a time server. Package "chrony" is part of the default install image.)
SSH (Secure SHell remote access server. "OpenSSH" is part of the default install image. Use "none" to disable remote login, e.g. on laptops.)
In most cases, either one of following line(s) is displayed as follows: No disks found. or Available disks are: sda (128.0 GB JMicron Tech )
Disk Mode ( A pre-setup of the "diskless" system or base configuration is completed by answering "none" when asked for the following questions.)
- Which disk(s) would you like to use? (or '?' for help or 'none') none
- Enter where to store configs (/media/ or 'none') none
- The location of the package cache none

Base configuration is complete with the above step. Refer to the alternate courses of action to proceed further.

System Disk mode Install

At the final step of base configuration instead of answering none for the prompts in the Disk Mode stage, the System Disk Mode or traditional hard-disk install of Alpine Linux can be completed.

The System disk mode of installation using setup-alpine requires an entire hard disk for Alpine Linux. If you do not have a dedicated hard disk for Alpine linux, you have to refer to alternate courses of action to proceed further.

At the Disk Mode stage, sda or relevant disk must be chosen in the below screen:
Which disk(s) would you like to use? (or '?' for help or 'none') sda
Confirmation for the chosen disk appears. The following disk is selected: sda (128.0 GB JMicron Tech ).
Pay close attention and verify that the disk matches your requirement. Answering none in the next step or pressing Ctrl+c will exit/abort the installation process.

Warning: If System Disk mode is chosen by entering sys in the next step, the data on the chosen device will be overwritten! No further questions will be asked. Proceed only if you are 100% sure.

How would you like to use it? ('sys', 'data', 'lvm' or '?' for help) sys

If sys was chosen, the setup-alpine script will complete the traditional hard-disk installation of Alpine Linux on the chosen disk.

Once the installation is complete, you can skip the next steps and proceed to reboot the system to start using it.

Custom partitioning

Refer Setting up disks manually page for specific configurations related to RAID, encryption, LVM, etc. as well as to manually partition the harddisk.

For "diskless" or "data disk" mode installs, manual partitioning may be needed to prepare the harddisk for committing local backups of the system state with lbu commit, to have a place for a package cache, or to use it for a /var mount.

For "System disk" mode install, custom partitioning is needed only if the desired layout scheme differs from overwriting an entire disk, i.e using the default set of /boot, swap and root partition.

Preparing for the first boot

If setup-alpine has finished configuring the "sys" disk mode, the system should be ready to reboot right away (see next subsection).

If the new local system was configured to run in "diskless" or "data" mode, and you do not want keep booting from the initial (and possibly read-only) installation media, the boot system needs to be copied to another device or partition.

The target partition may be identified using lsblk (after installing it with apk add lsblk) and/or blkid, similar to previously identifying the initial installation media device.

The procedure to copy the boot system is explained at setup-bootable

Once everything is in place, save your customized configuration with lbu commit before rebooting.

Reboot

First, remove the initial installation media from the boot drive, or detach it from the port it's connected to.

The system may now be power-cycled or rebooted to confirm everything is working correctly.

The relevant commands for this are poweroff or reboot. Login into the new system with the root account.

Completing the installation

The installation script installs only the base operating system. No applications e.g. web server, mail server, desktop environment, or web browsers are installed.

Please look under Post-Installation below, for some common things to do after installation.

Custom Installation Instructions

Custom-made headless apkovl can be done by first booting the install media on some computer with a display and keyboard attached, or in a virtual machine, and doing an intermediate "diskless" setup of just the boot media (more details below), i.e. using the offical setup-alpine to configure the system's network, possibly for dhcp if needed, a ssh server, and a login user. Choosing "disks=none" for now, yet, configure to store configs on the boot media (if it is writable, otherwise on a separate storage media). And afterwards calling lbu commit to store the configs as local backup. Then your completed setup, including its securely created own private keys, will readily get (re)loaded on every subsequent (headless) boot from your custom-build <hostname>.apkovl.tar.gz stored on the boot media (or on an auxilary media or server location, in case the boot media is read-only).

Note: Specific topics should be kept on separate, individually manageable topic-pages and only get listed with a direct reference (link) on this general page.

Bootstrap Alpine Linux on a headless system using pre-built apkovl overlay file.
Kernels (kernel selection, e.g. for VMs or RPi)
How to make a custom ISO image with mkimage (installation media with its own configuration)
Directly booting an ISO file (without flashing it to a disk or device)
Dual/multi-boot install to HDD partition
Netboot Alpine Linux using iPXE
Installing Alpine Linux in a chroot
- Buildlab (Tool for creating and managing chroots)
Install Alpine on LXC
VMware, Qemu, or Amazon EC2

Xen Dom0 (Setting up Alpine as a dom0 for Xen hypervisor)

Setting up a basic vserver
Setting up a compile vserver for official or for third party packages

Also see other Installation Category pages.

Post-Installation

Tip: Alpine Linux packages stay close to the upstream design. Therefore, all upstream documentation about configuring a software package, as well as good configuration guides from other distributions that stay close to upstream, e.g. those in the ArchWiki, or Gentoo wiki are to a large degree, also applicable to configuring the software on Alpine Linux, thus can be very useful.

Daily driver guide

Many people think that Alpine is only made for containers and servers, but it is actually a general purpose distro which can definitely be used as a daily driver.

Alpine is extremely small, simple and resource-efficient, making it easy to customize.

Note: This guide assumes you have already installed a minimal Alpine system by following the Installation guide

Basics

Create a non-privileged user account for security reasons.
Learn the alpine package keeper basics or refer apk wiki for more details.
Ensure that community repository is enabled
Install graphics driver for your video hardware.
Install a desktop using Setup-desktop or manually install a desktop of your choice.
Install some fonts.
Setup PipeWire to manage your audio, if setup-desktop did not install it for your already or you installed your desktop environment manually.
Configure your Bluetooth, if you have one. Also check pipewire bluetooth, if needed.
Configure your printer.
Enable docs, so man pages are available.
To keep your system secure, regularly check and apply updates with the package manager.

Advanced

If you find busybox lacking in features or options, it is easy to get regular stuff working
Use Flatpak to add packages that are not in the repositories.
Install gcompat package to add a glibc compatability layer which lets you run glibc binaries as normal.
Secure your system by installing firewall software like awall or UFW.
Install a sandboxing application like AppArmor or Bubblewrap.
Learn basics of openrc, the alpine Linux init system or refer Open rc wiki
If You may want the rolling release version of Alpine Linux, enable the Edge repository.
You may want to enable the testing repository, as it provides a lot more applications.