Post installation

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General Notes

• When # is displayed before a command, that means the command needs to be run with root privileges.

• Anything in < > is likely just a placeholder that you need to replace (example: <editor> file.txt).

• Some information in here might be a repeat of information in other wiki pages. If you find a section where that is the case, please add a link to the original wiki page.

Network setup

Wi-Fi

• Wi-Fi
• NetworkManager

Ethernet (Wired)

This material needs expanding ... Documentation on Ethernet (Wired) internet setup needs to be created/expanded, maybe information from other wiki's/docs might be helpful?

• Ethernet
• NetworkManager

Creating a new standard user account

Note: This should be safe to delete. All relevant information should be in Setting up a new user

After installing Alpine by default you only get a root account. You will probably want to create an account that is not root,

# adduser <YourUsername>

Note: replace <YourUsername> with the username of your choice

You will probably want to install doas so you can allow <YourUsername> to use root privileges:

# apk add doas

If you want your user to be able to use root privileges, first add them to the wheel group:

# adduser <YourUsername> wheel

You will then want to allow members of the wheel group to use root privileges with doas. To do this, open the doas config file:

# <editor> /etc/doas.d/doas.conf

Add the following line and save the file:

permit persist :wheel

To switch to your new account, type exit in the shell and login as the new user.

Groups

Groups are needed for certain operations on your system (e.g audio to manage your system audio). Below is a list of groups:

Note: may be incomplete, if you see a group missing please add it along with a description

disk:x:6:root,adm Only if need usage with virtual machines and access to other partitions over new disks for lp:x:7:lp If you need use printing services and printers management floppy:x:11:root Backward compatible group, use only if need access to external special devices audio:x:18: Need for audio listening and management of sound volumes as normal user cdrom:x:19: For access to disk writers and mounting DVD, BR or CD-ROM disk as normal user dialout:x:20:root Need for dial private connections and use of modems as normal users tape:x:26:root Need this if planning to use special devices for backup. Rarely used on servers video:x:27:root For usage of cameras, more than one GPU special features, as normal user netdev:x:28: For network connections management as normal user kvm:x:34:kvm Only if as normal user will manage graphically virtual machines. Rarely used on servers games:x:35: Need if you want to play games also especially needed to share score between users cdrw:x:80: To write RW-DVD, RW-BR or RW-CD disk on a disk writing device apache:x:81: Need if you will perform development as normal user and want to publish locally on web server usb:x:85: Need to access to special USB devices, deprecated group users:x:100:games If you plan to used common files for all users, mandatory as desktop usage input:x:23 Needed if you want your mouse and keyboard to work in a graphical desktop environment (xorg only? idk)

To add your user to a group use the following command:

# adduser <YourUsername> <group>

Note: you need to log out for the group change(s) to take effect

Repositories

Note: This should be safe to delete. All relevant information should be in Repositories

The Alpine software repositories have three branches:

• Main: Main packages are the Alpine software that have direct support and updates from the Alpine core and main team. They also have official special documentation, are always available for all releases and will have substitutions if some are not continued from upstream. Commonly, those packages are selected due to their responsibility and stability with respect to upstream availability. When those in testing perform well or are mature, they go to the main branch.
• Community: Community packages are those made by users in concert with the official developers and integrated into the Alpine packages. They are user supported. Support could end if the user ends support with respect to Alpine work. For example, could not include substitution in next release due to lack of support by the upstream author. They are in edge, and when accepted, go to the community branch.
• Edge: New packages come into testing repositories of the edge Alpine version and are those made by any contributor or manpower on Alpine. The edge contains unstable current development content. This branch has no release linked or related to Alpine. They are in testing and when accepted, go to the community branch.

By default only the main repository is enabled. Most users will probably want to enable the community repository. To enable a repository, remove the # in front of the URL along with any blank space.

(Example) Disabled:

Contents of /etc/apk/repositories

#http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.15/community

(Example) Enabled:

Contents of /etc/apk/repositories

http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.15/community

To edit the repositories, open the /etc/apk/repositories file in a text editor:

# <editor> /etc/apk/repositories

Example default configuration:

Contents of /etc/apk/repositories

#/media/cdrom/apks http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.15/main # http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.15/community #http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/main #http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community #http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing

Note: The edge repositories contain unstable and/or possibly untested packages. Use at your own risk!

To avoid having to manually update the verison in /etc/apk/repositories for each Alpine Linux update, change v3.15 to latest-stable.

Example:

Contents of /etc/apk/repositories

#/media/cdrom/apks http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/latest-stable/main http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/latest-stable/community #http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/main #http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community #http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing

Note: Changing the repositories to latest-stable may initiate unexpected release upgrades. Do this at your own risk!

For security reasons, it may be a good idea to change the url's from http to https

Example:

Contents of /etc/apk/repositories

#/media/cdrom/apks https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.15/main https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.15/community #https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/main #https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community #https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing

Note: Some Alpine Linux package mirrors may not support HTTPS. If that is the case, you will need to revert back or change mirrors.

Once you have edited /etc/apk/repositories, sync the repositories with:

# apk update

Installing a Display Server (for graphical sessions)

Xorg

Most desktop environments (DE) or Windows Managers (WM) require Xorg (also called: X11, X). In the future many will migrate to Wayland, currently Xorg is still widely used.

Alpine Linux provides a script that will install Xorg. Run the following command to install Xorg:

# setup-xorg-base

Wayland

See also: Wayland

This material needs expanding ... Wayland documentation needs to be expanded

Fonts

If you plan to use a graphical desktop environment, you may need/want to install fonts.

Note: depending on the desktop environment/window manager fonts may or may not be installed automatically or as dependencies

See: Fonts

Installing a desktop environment or window manager

See: Desktop environments and Window managers

Sound

By default Alpine does not come with any sound management out of the box. These are your options:

• PipeWire
• PulseAudio
• ALSA

Note: If you are unsure, pipewire is the recommended option

Miscellaneous

Some other miscellaneous things that might be useful:

Basic tools

Alpine is a minimalist Linux distribution. If you expected a behavior like other Linux distributions, the similarity to them will be minimal at best. To install a selection of commonly used packages, run:

# apk add sed attr dialog bash bash-completion grep util-linux pciutils usbutils binutils findutils readline lsof less nano curl

Manual pages

Note: This should be safe to delete. All relevant information should be in Alpine_Linux:FAQ#Why_don.27t_I_have_man_pages_or_where_is_the_.27man.27_command.3F

Manual pages are not included in the base install, but are just an apk command away:

# apk add man-pages mandoc

In case you want to check if a specific command/program/configuration file has man pages:

$ man -k dd $ man -k curl $ man -k host.conf

To automatically install the documentation for all installed packages, run:

# apk add docs

Troubleshooting

I don't have permission to do anything in my user's home directory!

By default the permissions of your new user(s) home directory may be limited to the root account. Run one of these commands to change that:

# chown <YourUserName> /home/<YourUserName> && chmod 700 /home/<YourUsername>

or

# chown <YourUserName> /home/<YourUserName> && chmod 750 /home/<YourUsername>

See also

• Installation
• Comparison with other distros