Installation

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

Main article: 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. It is optional in "diskless" mode, where it may be used to save newer data and configurations states of a running system.]
• A working internet connection is required to complete "sys" mode installation.

Note: Most of the steps outlined on this page applies to all Architectures supported by 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

Main article: Diskless Mode

In Diskless mode the entire operating system with all applications are first loaded into RAM and then only run from there. This mode is extremely fast and can save on unnecessary disk spin-ups, power, and wear. 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.

Data Disk Mode

Main article: 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.

System Disk Mode

System or sys Disk Mode is the traditional hard-disk install. Alpine Linux can be installed to an entire hard disk using setup-alpine script or to custom partitions using setup-disk. For further info, refer System Disk Mode.

General course of action

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

The optional environment variables can be called either by setup-alpine script at the beginning of Installation or by setup-disk script later.

Environment variables

• BOOTFS - The filesystem to use on /boot, defaults to ext4, also allows ext2, ext3, (flat) btrfs, xfs and vfat (required on UEFI).
• BOOTLOADER - Bootloader to use. Defaults to syslinux, but also allows using grub, unless UEFI is used, in which case grub is required.
• BOOTSIZE - The size of /boot.
• DISKLABEL - The type of partition table to use. Defaults to dos, but also allows using gpt, unless UEFI is used, in which case gpt is required.
• ROOTFS - The filesystem to use on /, defaults to ext4, also allows ext2, ext3, (flat) btrfs and xfs.
• USE_EFI - Enable this to force using UEFI.

Environment variables can be combined and used. For e.g, the following command creates 512MB /boot partition on the selected hard disk, with vfat filesystem and uses grub as bootloader. The disk will be set to use gpt partition table.

# USE_EFI=1 BOOTSIZE=512 setup-alpine

Alternate courses of action

Examples of preparation options:

• Download some specific driver to configure the hardware, and/or install some software tool that may be missing in the live system by using the alpine package manager apk.
• Do a Manual partitioning of the harddisk that avoids overwrite of an entire disk.

Examples of proceeding options:

• To install Alpine Linux on an entire hard disk with default options, proceed with setup-alpine based System Disk Install
• Use setup-lbu to configure a "local backup" location and setup-apkcache to configure a local package cache storage location for the diskless system and finally use lbu commit to then save the local configuration state.
• Use setup-bootable to create a customizable boot media for diskless or data disk-mode i.e a boot device with a writable filesystem.
• Use setup-disk to complete a traditional hard-disk installation on a partition or to Dualboot or to configure RAID, encryption or LVM for both "data" disk and "system" disk mode or to add a "data" mode partition.

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

From Security point of view, verify the downloaded image file for both checksum and GPG signature before proceeding further. The three required utilities i.e sha256, curl and gpg or their equivalents are available in every operating system including Linux, windows, Mac and BSD derivaties.

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

Preparing installation media

See also: Burning ISOs

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 Alpine Linux installation image is written on it. Be extremely careful to correctly identify the device name for the installation media using the commands lsblk and blkid.

In Linux, dd command can write the downloaded image file to the installation media i.e target device.

Note: Modify the input file(if) and output file(of) according to the name and path to your image file and target device. Do not use partition numbers for the target device i.e use /dev/sdX instead of /dev/sdbXY.

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

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.

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 Alpine Linux. The script can be customized by using the optional environment variables at this stage.

Base configuration

Launch the Alpine Linux Installation by running the setup-alpine script :

# setup-alpine

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".

Example setup-alpine session

The setup-alpine script offers the following configuration options:

1. Keyboard Layout (Local keyboard language and usage mode, e.g. us and variant of us-nodeadkeys.)
2. Hostname (The name for the computer.)
3. Network (For example, automatic IP address discovery with the "DHCP" protocol.)
4. 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.)
5. Root password (the password used to login to the root account)
6. Timezone (Optionally display times/dates in your local time zone)
7. HTTP/FTP Proxy (Proxy server to use for accessing the web/ftp. Use "none" for direct connections to websites and FTP servers.)
8. Mirror (From where to download packages. Choose the organization you trust giving your usage patterns to.)
9. Setup a user (Setting up a regular user account)
10. 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.)
11. SSH (Secure SHell remote access server. "OpenSSH" is part of the default install image. Use "none" to disable remote login, e.g. on laptops.)
12. 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 )

13. 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.

setup-alpine based System Disk Install

setup-alpine script based traditional hard disk installation, needs an entire hard disk(s) for Alpine Linux and uses an ext4^*** filesystem based partitioning layout with (/)root partition, /boot partition and a swap partition. If your use case matches the above, at the final step of base configuration, at the prompt Which disk(s) would you like to use?, type the appropriate hard disk device name instead of none. If multiple disks are chosen, RAID is used.

• At the Disk Mode stage, sda or relevant disk(s) 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(s) appears. The following disk is selected: sda (128.0 GB JMicron Tech ).

Warning: Pay close attention to the disk name and size. Enter Ctrl+c to abort the installation process. If you enter sys in the next step, no further questions will be asked and data on the chosen disk(s) will be overwritten!. Proceed only if you are 100% sure.

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

If sys is chosen, the setup-alpine script will complete the traditional hard-disk installation of Alpine Linux on the chosen disk(s) without further questions. Once the installation is complete, you can skip the next steps and proceed to reboot the system to boot into the newly installed Alpine Linux and configure further.

DISKDEV

Disk Device refers to Hard Disk Device. With this option, environment variables determine the filesystem, size of the boot partition and the bootloader. If multiple disks are selected and if there are more than 2 disks, then raid level 5 is used instead of raid level 1.

Custom partitioning

Manual partitioning of the harddisk may be needed to prepare the harddisk for "sys" mode install using setup-disk and for storing the config file using lbu commit and package cache for Diskless and for /var mount for Data disk mode installs. Refer Setting up disks manually page for specific configurations related to RAID, encryption, LVM, etc...

Preparing for the first boot

If System Disk Mode of installation was performed, ignore this section and proceed to reboot.

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, create a customizable boot device. 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 at Post-Installation, 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).

• 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)
• Netboot Alpine Linux using iPXE
• Virtualization

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.
• Since binary packages are thinned out and split into sub-packages in Alpine Linux, new users struggle with missing features. For eg: networkmanager* is split into 18 sub-packages. Always remember to install the necessary sub-packages which provides the required features.

Daily driver guide

Many people think that Alpine Linux is only made for containers and servers, but it is actually a general purpose distribution designed for power users. Since Alpine Linux is extremely small, simple and resource-efficient, it is easy to customize and use as a daily driver.

Note: This guide assumes you have already installed a minimal Alpine Linux system with working internet 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 documentation, 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 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.

Other topics

Topics not strictly related to using Alpine Linux as desktop are listed below:

• Upgrade your OS, when a new version is released.
• Setting up Networking (including non-standard configurations)
• Init System (OpenRC) (configure a service to automatically boot at next reboot)
  • Writing Init Scripts
  • Multiple Instances of Services
• Hosting services on Alpine (links to several mail/web/ssh server setup pages)

See also

• Tutorials and Howtos
• FAQs
• Comparison with other distros (how common things are done on Alpine)
• Wiki etiquette (to collaborate on this documentation)