Software management

This page documents various ways to manage software in Alpine Linux. Graphical software managers are available to supplement apk to manage official software packages along with Flatpaks.

This page also documents ways to run software compiled with glibc including graphical programs like Visual Studio Code, google-chrome, obsidian etc...

Alpine package keeper

Main article: Alpine Package Keeper

The official package manager in Alpine Linux Alpine Package Keeper(apk) is a cli tool. Rosetta stone shows how standard package management tasks are done in Alpine Linux compared to other popular distributions.

Graphical software manager

The following graphical tools are available to manage software packages from official repositories and Flatpaks.

Gnome software

Gnome Software can be used as a GUI front end for apk for managing official software packages and flatpaks.

KDE Discover

KDE Discover can be used as a GUI front end for apk for managing official software packages and flatpaks.

Flatpak

Main article: Flatpak

Flatpak is by far the easiest method for running programs not available in the official Alpine Linux repositories. To use flatpaks, ensure that Flathub repository is enabled.

Running glibc programs

If you want to run glibc programs in Alpine Linux, there are a few ways of doing so.

For simpler binaries, you can install gcompat a compatibility layer or you could do it the easy way and use Flatpaks. See containers or chroot section for ways to run glibc programs including graphical ones.

gcompat

gcompat is a library which provides glibc-compatible APIs for use on musl libc systems like Alpine Linux. To install issue the command:

apk add gcompat

After that you run your binaries as normal.

For an usage example, refer Firefox page, where gcompat is used to run glibc compiled Widevine binary.

Chroot

Main article: Chroot

An option that's easier to generalize to other glibc applications is installing a glibc-based distribution into a chroot. You can then either chroot into it, or use a symlink and some configuration to make its glibc (and associated libraries) usable from Alpine.

Tip: The most reliable way to enter a chroot is to use the start-chroot script.

After setting up a chroot using any of the methods described below, the loader can be set up in Alpine like so (these instructions are for a Debian chroot in /var/chroots/debian, on x86_64, but can be adapted to other systems by using the appropriate paths):

mkdir -p /lib64 ln -s /var/chroots/debian/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ld-2.33.so /lib64 printf '/var/chroots/debian/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu\n/var/chroots/debian/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu\n' > /etc/ld.so.conf /var/chroots/debian/sbin/ldconfig

Gentoo Linux

Select a stage3 from here and portage latest from here at gentoo/snapshots/portage-latest.tar.xz.

First,

doas apk add xz

Enter the chroot:

mkdir ~/chroot cd ~/chroot tar -xvf stage3-*.tar.xz tar -xvf portage-latest.tar.xz mv portage usr doas mount --bind /dev dev doas mount --bind /sys sys doas mount -t proc proc proc cp /etc/resolv.conf etc doas chroot . /bin/bash

And voilà, you have your working Gentoo chroot!

You can now take a look at Gentoo's Handbook to find out how you can configure and install your system, or simply extract/copy the program you need to run in your chroot enviroment and execute it.

Here is a wrapper script that is similar to arch-chroot when you frequently reuse this chroot:

Also, create an account with the same user name as host current user to the chroot or make changes to the userspec option to chroot line.

Contents of gentoo-chroot.sh

!/bin/bash CHROOT_PATH="/home/$USER/chroot" cd $CHROOT_PATH mount | grep $CHROOT_PATH/dev || doas mount --bind /dev dev mount | grep $CHROOT_PATH/sys || doas mount --bind /sys sys mount | grep $CHROOT_PATH/proc || doas mount -t proc proc proc cp /etc/resolv.conf etc doas chroot --userspec=$USER:users . /bin/bash echo "You must manually unmount $CHROOT_PATH/dev, $CHROOT_PATH/sys, $CHROOT_PATH/proc."

Do at chmod +x gentoo-chroot.sh to get it to work.

Arch Linux

See also: Installing ArchLinux inside an Alpine chroot

Either use pacstrap (included with the arch-install-scripts package) or an Arch bootstrap image:

doas apk add arch-install-scripts mkdir ~/chroot && cd ~/chroot curl -O https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/archlinux/iso/latest/archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64.tar.zst doas tar -x --zstd -f archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64.tar.zst && rm archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64.tar.zst doas sed -i '/evowise/s/^#//' root.x86_64/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist doas sed -i '/CheckSpace/s/^/#/' root.x86_64/etc/pacman.conf doas arch-chroot root.x86_64 [chroot]# pacman-key --init [chroot]# pacman-key --populate archlinux

Once that is done, update the system and install the desired package(s) (denoted by "foo" in this example):

[chroot]# pacman -Syu foo

Debian

Alpine Linux provides debootstrap package to create the Debian chroot. Here are the steps:

# apk add debootstrap # mkdir -p /var/chroots/debian # debootstrap --arch amd64 stable /var/chroots/debian/ https://deb.debian.org/debian

The --arch is optional, depending on your needs.

For updating the Chroot or for installing applications i.e packages and their dependencies using apt-get, mount it and then login as root:

# mount --bind /dev /var/chroots/debian/dev # mount --bind /proc /var/chroots/debian/proc # mount --bind /dev/pts /var/chroots/debian/dev/pts # chroot /var/chroots/debian /bin/bash [chroot]# apt update && apt upgrade

After installing the necessary applications and what you might want to do, exit the chroot and umount the binds for /dev/pts, dev and proc to avoid issues.

# umount /var/chroots/debian/dev/pts # umount /var/chroots/debian/dev # umount /var/chroots/debian/proc

Containers

Distrobox + Podman

Distrobox combined with podman container running in rootless mode allows running glibc compiled graphical programs easy. This doesn't require root privileges once set up.

Bubblewrap + Chroot

A script glibc is used to create a container using Bubblewrap where a Debian chroot is the content of that container. It's not just a chroot anymore; it's a bubblewrap powered isolated environment. This allows running graphical programs easy and doesn't require root privileges once installed.

Install the bubblewrap package.

Set up Debian chroot at /var/chroots/debian and install necessary glibc applications using apt-get.

Create an alias glibc using bwrap in the Alpine Linux host to start applications from the Debian chroot.

$ alias glibc="LANG=en_US.UTF-8 bwrap --bind /var/chroots/debian / --dev-bind /dev /dev --proc /proc --bind /sys /sys --bind /run /run --bind /home /home --ro-bind /etc/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf --ro-bind /etc/passwd /etc/passwd --ro-bind /etc/group /etc/group"

To run programs that use X11/Xorg you can use:

$ alias glibcX11="LANG=en_US.UTF-8 bwrap --bind /var/chroots/debian / --dev-bind /dev /dev --proc /proc --bind /sys /sys --bind /run /run --bind /home /home --ro-bind /etc/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf --ro-bind /etc/passwd /etc/passwd --ro-bind /etc/group /etc/group --bind /tmp/.X11-unix/X0 /tmp/.X11-unix/X0 --setenv DISPLAY :0"

In this case you might need to use xhost on the Alpine Linux host to allow local connections, e.g.:

# xhost + local:

Now we can invoke glibc-built binaries using the alias from the Alpine Linux host like so:

$ glibc ./binary

or

$ glibcX11 ./binary

When Wayland desktop like Sway runs without xwayland on the Alpine Linux host, electron apps like vscode, google-chrome etc needs to be started as follows:$ glibc code --ozone-platform=wayland.

See also

• Alpine Package Keeper
• Installing ArchLinux inside an Alpine chroot
• Compile software from source