Talk:Installation

WIP: Streamline and concentrate all the essential info on the basic install page

Hardware Requirements

At least 100 MB of RAM is necessary. A complete desktop system can require up to 1 GB.
The "sys" or "data" run modes require a storage device.

Install Procedure

Similar to many other distributions, the first installation steps usually consist of

Downloading one of the latest stable-release ISOs, and comparing the image's sha265sum checksum to the one in the corresponding *.sha256 checksum file () and verify its GPG signature.
Either burning the ISO onto a blank CD with your favorite CD burning software, or creating a bootable USB drive.
Booting from the CD or USB drive, and logging in to the command line as user root with its initally empty password.

(For installing on ARM systems, see Alpine on ARM.)

However, contrary to most other distributions, this initially booted Alpinelinux (command line environment) is first copied entirely into RAM, and then runs completely independent from the (slow) initial boot media. And then, the setup-alpine script, and other tools, are used to configure the initial Alpinelinux system, install further packages, and prepare the system for the next boot.

Alpinelinux can boot into three general run modes:

diskless mode This is the default boot mode of the .iso images. With the setup-alpine selection "disk=none" the whole system runs from RAM. Customized configuration and package selections may still be preserved on permanent storage media with lbu, the "local backup tool", and by using a local package cache.

data mode This mode also runs mostly from RAM, with the exception of a selected writable partition that gets mounted as /var. It is better-suited when large amounts of data need to be preserved between reboots, e.g. for mailspools, databases or log servers, and so on.

sys mode This is a traditional hard-disk install. The setup-alpine script defaults to create three partitions on the selected disk, for /boot, swap and / (filesystem root). This mode may be used for desktops, development boxes, and virtual machines.

Additional Hints

Booting from external devices

Insert the media to the proper drive or port of the computer and turn on the computer. But depending on the computer it may be necessary, e.g. to press the `F12` key to get a selection to choose the media to boot from.

The setup-alpine questions

The setup-alpine script will ask to configure several things, including:

Keyboard map (e.g. us and variant of us-nodeadkeys)
Hostname (The name for the computer.)
Network options
DNS options: Not recommended to use 8.8.8.8 (google servers).
Timezone
Proxy ("None" to connect directly to the internet.)
SSH (Openssh is part of the default images.)
NTP (Chrony is part of the default images.)
Mode (Select between "diskless", "data" or "sys" as described above.)

Booting and using the new system

After the installation is completed, depending on the run mode, the initial installation media may be removed and the system can be booted from the newly installed device. After booting one may read Alpine post install packages and setup configurations for new users and find further areas to customize the new system.

Suggestions

About Installing Alpine on Compact Flash and Installing Alpine on USB, I think those two should be merged, steps are thesame. --K0gen 20:06, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Booting from ISO

I've given up. Couldn't make the intended setup work with my meager Linux knowledge. I did find a page here at the wiki where under the heading 'Install Alpine cd-rom image on hard disk' a somewhat related solution is provided, but it involves extracting the distro files from the iso, something that unetbootin does in a rather more easy and straightforward way -- at least, that's what I used to get Alpine to boot from a USB pendrive (plenty of recipes for that around). However, I still believe a simple 'boot from iso' procedure could do wonders for Alpine, so I'm leaving this here for future reference. Should anyone disagree, do feel free to delete. Pnin 05:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Current system is a 2.8 Prescott Pentium IV with 2MB RAM, booting from a 1GB CF plugged into the IDE controller, with an attached 500GB SATA HDD for data. When I tried to install Alpine from the LiveCD to this card, which is listed as a hard drive by the BIOS, it complained of insufficient space. Fair enough. Next I tried to follow this recipe to boot from Alpine 2.1.4 iso; at the end you find this tip:

Adding an Unlisted ISO: To try ISO Files that are not yet listed, use the existing menuentry examples in /boot/grub/grub.cfg and append any options normally found in the distributions syslinux.cfg file on the "append" line to the "linux" line of the menu entry.

So I downloaded the latest Alpine iso via wget and modified the relevant grub.cfg lines to:

linux (loop)/boot/grsec initrd=/boot/grsec.gz iso-scan/filename=/alpine214.iso alpine_dev=usbdisk:vfat modules=loop,cramfs,sd-mod,usb-storage quiet
initrd (loop)/boot/grsec.gz

All I got when I tried to boot this was the following error:

Alpine Init 2.1.2
/init: eval: line 1: syntax error: unexpected "("
kernel panic - not syncing: attempted to kill init!
Pid: 1, comm: init Not tainted 2.6.35.10-grsec #1-Alpine
[...]

I must say all went well with the Linux Mint 10.10 and the TinyCore isos, into which I'm able to boot with no issues. Anyone care to advise?

Pnin

Hi, that "linux (loop)/boot/...." thing looks funny to me.

According to: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

Could you try:

set root=(loop0)
linux /boot/grsec initrd=/boot/grsec.gz iso-scan/filename=/alpine214.iso alpine_dev=usbdisk:vfat modules=loop,cramfs,sd-mod,usb-storage quiet
initrd /boot/grsec.gz

Nangel 13:49, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi & thanks, Nangel.

Tried that and got this error:

error: no such disk.
error: you need to load the kernel first.
press any key to continue...

Pressing any key returns to the grub menu. Maybe the full grub.cfg entry should be reported here:

menuentry "Alpine Linux" {
loopback loop /alpine214.iso
linux (loop)/boot/grsec initrd=/boot/grsec.gz iso-scan/filename=/alpine214.iso alpine_dev=usbdisk:vfat modules=loop,cramfs,sd-mod,usb-storage quiet
initrd (loop)/boot/grsec.gz
}

It should also be noted that the LiveCD used to perform the recipe was "Linux Mint 9 LXDE", which caused Grub 1.98-1ubuntu5-1mint2 to be installed, not Grub2. And that (loop) part is present in every other successful menu entry.

[EDIT: Just to add that IMHO coupled with the Alpine Local Backup Utility (lbu), booting from iso would be a killer for Alpine, making systems really easy to troubleshoot (delete local backup) and upgrade (replace iso).]

Pnin 14:34, 6 February 2011 (UTC)