File management

File management and storage access in Alpine Linux Desktop environments involves various components. In Alpine Linux, file managers require additional software packages to:

• Automatically mount removable media
• Browse storage across shared networks
• Display and access partitions using different filesystems with other installed operating systems

Prerequisites

• Enable Polkit

File managers

File managers are computer programs that provides a user interface to file management i.e manage files and folders. A partial list of file managers available in Alpine Linux is given below:

Tool	Graphical/CLI	Brief Notes
caja	Graphical	The file manager for the MATE desktop
dolphin	Graphical	File manager for KDE Plasma desktop
konqueror	Graphical	KDE File Manager & Web Browser
lf	CLI	Terminal filemanager written in Go with vim-style keybindings
lomiri-filemanager-app	Graphical	Convergent file manager: for mobiles, desktops e.g. Lomiri DE, postmarketOS
mc	CLI	Filemanager/shell that emulates Norton Commander
nautilus	Graphical	GNOME file manager also known as 'GNOME Files'
nemo	Graphical	File manager for Cinnamon desktop environment
nnn	CLI	The unorthodox terminal file manager
pcmanfm	Graphical	Extremely fast and lightweight file manager for LXDE
pcmanfm-qt	Graphical	Qt port of pcmanfm
ranger	CLI	VIM-inspired filemanager for the console
thunar	Graphical	File manager for Xfce

Disk management

Managing disks including removable drives like USB is much easier with udisks. Install the udisks2 package:

# apk add udisks2

To see the mounted disks:

$ udisksctl status

To mount a disk /dev/sdb1:

$ udisksctl mount -b /dev/sdb1

Note: To mount encrypted devices ensure to have device-mapper and lvm2 packages installed.

To unmount a disk /dev/sdb1:

$ udisksctl unmount -b /dev/sdb1

GVfs

GVfs is a userspace virtual filesystem implementation for GIO,a library available in GLib. GVfs comes with a set of backends, including trash support, SFTP,SMB, HTTP, DAV, and many others.

Many GUI file managers rely on gvfs-fuse to mount external storage devices and gvfs-mtp to mount android devices.

Depending on what devices you intend to mount, additional packages may be installed from the below list:

# apk add \ ntfs-3g \ # Stable, full-featured, read-write NTFS (driver) gvfs-cdda \ # CDDA support for gvfs gvfs-afp \ # AFP support for gvfs gvfs-goa \ # GNOME Online Accounts support for gvfs gvfs-mtp \ # MTP support for gvfs gvfs-smb \ # Windows fileshare support for gvfs gvfs-lang \ # Languages for package gvfs gvfs-afc \ # Apple mobile devices support for gvfs gvfs-nfs \ # NFS support for gvfs gvfs-dev \ # Backends for the gio framework in GLib (development files) gvfs-archive \ # Archiving support for gvfs gvfs-dav \ # WebDAV support for gvfs gvfs-fuse \ # FUSE support for gvfs gvfs-gphoto2 \ # gphoto2 support for gvfs gvfs-avahi \ # DNS-SD support for gvfs

To list descriptions of all gvfs- packages:

$ apk info -d gvfs-*

Network browsing

For browsing of network shares that works seamlessly with file associations, install the gvfs packages for the required network protocols. For example, to browse in a SMB/cifs windows network:

# apk add gvfs-smb

The OpenRC script for fuse is in a separate package.

# apk add fuse-openrc

Then the fuse service can be started manually.

# rc-service fuse start

If the desktop sessions are already in progress, they need to be restarted for the changes to take effect, i.e. log out and log in again.

Test the network browsing with your favourite file manager and if it works, the fuse service can be added to start up automatically at boot time:

# rc-update add fuse

Troubleshooting

Error due to missing polkit

Error mounting /dev/sda1: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Error.NotAuthorized: Not authorized to perform operation (polkit authority not available and caller is not uid 0)

If Polkit is not available, the above error will occur. In this case either install and enable Polkit or using doas is recommended.