Installing Alpine

vivividomc There are currently two supported ways of running Alpine, from CDROM or from USB stick.

Preparing the media

CDROM

Download the latest iso image from the download area and burn it.

USB

Alpine is shipped in compressed tar.gz archives for USB.

From windows

• Download a alpine-x.x.x-yyyyyy.tar.gz package.
• Unpack all the files to your usb drive using a unpacker like 7-zip.
• Download the syslinux.exe utility.
• Start a command prompt (Start->run, type cmd and press >enter>)
• Run syslinux with your USB drive as parameter. If your USB drive is E:, then you type:

syslinux E:

USB drive os ready for booting.

From Linux

• Download a alpine-x.x.x-yyyyyy.tar.gz package.
• Unpack all the files to your usb drive.
• install syslinux (I.E sudo apt-get syslinux or emerge apt-get syslinux)
• Run syslinux with your USB drive as parameter. If your USB drive is /dev/sda1, then you type:

 sudo syslinux /dev/sda1

Initial setup

After booting up you will see a login prompt. Log in as root.

To do the basic initial configuration run:

 setup-alpine

There you will set the hostname, configure the network and set the root password.

To save the configuration to floppy for next reboot run:

 lbu_commit floppy

To save the config on an USB drive run:

 lbu_commit usb

Managing software packages

To list all the packages that are available in repository, run:

 apk_fetch -l
 apk_fetch -v -l

To install a package run:

 apk_add <PACKAGE>

To remove the package run:

 apk_delete <PACKAGE>

To also remove the dependencies togehter with the package, run:

 apk_delete -R <PACKAGE>

To list all installed packages run:

 apk_info

Managing boot services

To start a service during boot run:

 rc_add <service>

Managing local backups

To add a config file to the local backup list run:

 lbu_add /path/to/file

To save all the files in the local backup list to floppy run:

 lbu_commit floppy

To save the configs to USB drive run:

 lbu_commit usb

To list files in the local backup list run:

 cat /etc/backuplist