Setup-desktop

To use Alpine Linux as a Desktop, a desktop environment needs to be installed. The desktops environments that can be installed in Quickstart mode using Setup-desktop utility are listed:

• Plasma
• Gnome
• MATE
• Xfce
• Sway

Note: Before installing any desktop,

• Create a non-privileged user account for security reasons, if you skipped this step during Installation.
• Enable community repository. Setup-desktop script automatically does this for you.
• Install graphics driver for your video hardware.

If you are using Hyper-V and Xorg refuses to start, blacklist the hyperv_drm module by adding it to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file.

Installation using setup-desktop

The Alpine Linux script for setting up a desktop quickly is setup-desktop.

# setup-desktop

On running the above command, you will be prompted to select a desktop environment.

Which desktop environment? ('gnome', 'plasma', 'xfce', 'mate', 'sway' or 'none') [none]

Once you have chosen a desktop environment, this script installs the chosen desktop along with all the necessary packages, firefox browser and adds the necessary services to run on startup. You can reboot when complete and the system will boot into a graphical login screen with the desktop environment. Depending on the desktop chosen, the script also activates the necessary services like dbus, elogind, login manager etc..

To view all the packages that are installed by the script for the chosen desktop you can issue the below command:

# cat /sbin/setup-desktop

Information related to all Desktop Managers that are available In Alpine Linux.