Installation It means use as main system in physical machine, bare metal or embebed device. Unless Alpine Linux are most used inside docker and containers.. this document will described how Alpine Linux could be also put over a hardware to use as main operating system.

By example as do in smartphones by the PostmarketOS system (an operatiing system for smartphones based on Alpine Linux) or as Desktop over a computer like Adelie Linux. In fact, Alpine Linux are already installed in your media dumped, it means downloadble media files of Alpine Linux are already the system ready to use (live system) directly from the media where are dumped!

Quick Requirements

This is a simple and quick reference list, nowadays any hardware is supported for Alpine Linux:

At least 128 Megs of RAM for server without graphical GUI, or at least 1.6 Gigs for graphical desktop
At least 1 Gigs storage device for server without graphical GUI, or at least 10 Gigs for graphical desktop with web browsing

Highly recommended if you do not have great knowledge, to read wiki page for requirements.

Installation : setup-alpine : booting process until login prompt

Installation Overview

Those steps are brief of, for complete info please consult Installation page manual.

1. Download the media source

Just grab from stable-release ISO image. Take note of architectures in green buttons.

2. Dump, burn or flash the image

Dump the ISO image onto a media source like USB/SD flashing; or CD/DVD/BR disk with burning software. In linux is just making dd to the removable media device.

3. Boot and install process

Log-in as the user root with its initially empty password. Then execute setup-alpine here you can perform that questions and hit enter on each answer:

Installation : setup-alpine : complete process single install

Select keyboard layout: Let you to perform the keyborad layout, e.g. us or es
- Select keyboard variant: Choose your keyboard variant, e.g. us-nodeadkeys or es-winkeys respectively
Host name, which will be the name of your computer; localhost are enough and recommended for starting.
Initialize network cards: here most people can just go with the default (just press enter).
- Any other configuration: about any other configuration, just type "no" and hit enter
- Select domain name: if asked this are not commonly asked.. just hit enter.
DNS nameservers?: if asked just type 8.8.8.8 and hit enter.
Changing password for root: Next a root password must be defined, input a pass phrase, chars will not be show.
- retype password, input twice for confirmation, when typed no chars will be show.
Witch timezone to choose?: just hit enter to use UTC when perform a single installation.
Proxy chooser: just type none and hit enter if you have direct internet connection.
Enter mirror repository: .. just type 1 and then press enter
Witch ssh server?: Choose an SSH server allows you to remotely manage your machine. Just type enter.
Witch NTP client to run? This is for time sync, just press enter to use default.
Setup Disk This will setup the destination usage of the files
- Witch disk choose to use?: To choose the disk destination .. commonly sda are the hard disk cos sdb the USB boot or CD/DVD image
- How would be used?: just type "sys" and then press enter, is the familiar install to disk for usage as main OS to computers.

Take care that all data on your disk will be erased.. a last question will prompt and by type "y" and hit enter no turn back will be allowed.

After al the scripts setup ends, a "reboot" will be offered:

If the configured runtime mode was "sys", then remove the initial installation media to boot the newly installed system.
If the configured runtime mode was "data", then keep installation media to boot the newly installed system.

The relevant commands for this are reboot or poweroff, after exits from setup-alpine process.

Further Documentation

After the system has been installed, it has only placed the operating system, but things like internet browser or movie viewer are not yet installed, things like web server or mail server neither much less. For that you must check Tutorials_and_Howtos Post-Install section

More specific or other architecture or machines (e.g. ARM, RPi, etc) are defined in Installation:_Use_cases wiki pages