Desktop environments and Window managers

Alpine Linux has no official desktop and setting up a graphical environment is not even part of Installation. All window managers and desktop environments that are available in Alpine Linux are listed in this page. Quick installation using setup-desktop script is available for few desktops.

Tip: For servers consider using Alpine Configuration Framework(ACF) for security reasons.

Desktop environments

Desktop environment (DE) is made of a bundle of programs that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphical shell. A desktop environment typically consists of icons, windows, toolbars, folders, wallpapers desktop widgets and might also provide drag and drop.

• Xfce
• LXQt
• KDE Plasma
• GNOME
• MATE

Window managers

A window manager is software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. In case of Wayland, these are called compositors because they additionally perform the task of a compositing window manager.

Almost all components of a desktop needs to be added manually by the user. A stacking a.k.a. floating or tiling a.k.a. dynamic layout is commonly used for window management.

WM Name	Protocol	Style	Toolkit	Inspiration
Awesome	X11	Tiling	Lua
berry	X11	Stacking	C
bspwm	X11	Tiling	C
cage	Wayland	Kiosk	C/wlroots	ratpoison
cagebreak	Wayland	Tiling	C/wlroots	ratpoison and cage
cwm	X11	Stacking	C
dwl	Wayland	Tiling	C/wlroots	dwm
dwm	X11	Tiling	C
Fluxbox	X11	Stacking	C++	Blackbox
herbstluftwm	X11	Tiling	C++
Hyprland	Wayland	Tiling	C++
i3	X11	Tiling	C
jwm	X11	Stacking	C
LabWC	Wayland	Stacking	C/wlroots	Openbox
mwm	X11	Stacking	C
Openbox	X11	Stacking	C
Qtile	Both	Tiling	Python
ratpoison	X11	Kiosk	C
River	Wayland	Tiling	Zig	dwm and xmonad
spectrwm	X11	Tiling	C	xmonad and dwm
Sway	Wayland	Tiling	C/wlroots	i3
twm	X11	Tiling	C
wayfire	Wayland	Stacking	C++/wlroots	Compiz
Weston	Wayland	Stacking	C

See also

• Post Installation
• Wayland
• Xorg
• Display manager
• Desktop environment - Archwiki
• Desktop environment - Gentoo Wiki