GNOME
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Initial setup
Start by booting up Alpine (see these instructions on how to do that)
When you Alpine is up and running, do the initial setup.
setup-alpine
setup-xorg-base
Install packages
Install basic desktop system and gnome packages. For Alpine Linux 3.3 and later, these packages are in the community repo.
This might take a few minutes depending on your network speed.
apk add alpine-desktop gnome-base lxdm
Lxdm is a display manager. You can use a different one such as slim by replacing
lxdm
with
slim
Optional packages
Video and Input packages
You might also want to install a package suitable for your video chipset and input devices.
For example, if you have an Sis video chipset install 'xf86-video-sis', for Intel video chipset install 'xf86-video-intel'.
apk add xf86-video-sis
and / or
apk add xf86-input-synaptics
If you are running a virtual machine (i.e in VirtualBox or VMware) you probably also want these video drivers:
apk add xf86-video-vmware
Run 'apk search xf86-video*' to see available xf86-video packages.
Run 'apk search xf86-input*' to see available xf86-input packages.
acpid
If you installed your Alpine Linux as a VirtualBox or VMWare guest you might find it handy be able send ACPI shutdown.
rc-update add acpid
Configure xorg-server (optional)
You can configure xorg-server and make your modifications
Xorg -configure
This will result in `/root/xorg.conf.new`. You can modify this file to fit your needs.
(When finished modifying and testing the above configuration file, move it to `/etc/X11/xorg.conf` for normal usage.)
udev
Adding udev might help you with some finicky hardware like touchpads.
apk add udev /etc/init.d/udev start && /etc/init.d/udev-postmount start rc-update add udev sysinit rc-update add udev-postmount default
Adding evdev might also be necessary, for example if the keyboard doesn't work in X...
apk add xf86-input-evdev
Create user accounts
Create a normal user account.
adduser ncopa
Optionally, give that user sudo permissions in /etc/sudoers.
Start your desktop
Start lxdm and log in with your new user.
rc-service lxdm start
Once you have verified that it actually works you can make lxdm start up at boot:
rc-update add lxdm
Or if using slim:
rc-service slim start
and once confirmed as working enable it at boot:
rc-update add slim
Troubleshooting
If you are unable to login, check /var/log/lxdm.log, there may be output there from X to indicate failed modules, etc.
If you are unable to login, or you see an error "Failed to execute login command", you should check ~/.xinitrc with your preferred text editor (vi, nano, etc) and ensure that it is set to boot into gnome. To do this, the 'exec' line (usually the last line in the file) should read "exec gnome-session".
If ~/.xinitrc does not exist, create it and add the exec line. this command will do it:
touch ~/.xinitrc && echo "exec gnome-session" >> ~/.xinitrc