Prerequisites

Install AlpineLinux
Create a user account (optional but recommended)
Enable the Community repository

Installing packages

Install basic desktop system and gnome packages.

# setup-desktop gnome

It will take care of installing the basic packages and setting up the display manager.

If you want, you can install additional GNOME apps for a more complete GNOME experience with:

# apk add gnome-apps-extra

And even all of GNOME games with:

# apk add gnome-games-collection

Enabling GNOME Shell screen recording

For the embedded screen recording in GNOME Shell to work, you will need some additional packages:

# apk add pipewire wireplumber gst-plugin-pipewire

Enabling GNOME Software

For GNOME Software to be able to manage APK packages, it needs the apk-polkit-server service working. To enable it and start it up:

# rc-update add apk-polkit-server default && rc-service apk-polkit-server start

Troubleshooting

If you are unable to log in, check /var/log/gdm/greeter.log, there may be info there from X that indicates failed modules, etc.

If GNOME Terminal doesn't start, add the following to /etc/profile.d/locale.sh: LANG=en_US.UTF-8 and reboot.

If the on-screen keyboard shows up in GDM after installing other UIs such as Phosh, you need to disable it by opening the Accessibility menu (top right) when you are in the GDM login screen. You can disable the on-screen keyboard there. Or set org.gnome.desktop.a11y.applications screen-keyboard-enabled to false for the gdm user with dconf