Daily driver guide

Alpine Linux is a general purpose Linux distribution designed for power users. It is built to be small and resource efficient. If you feel the defaults are too lightweight for desktop use, it is easy to get most of the regular stuff working and use Alpine Linux as a daily driver by following this guide.

Prerequisites

• Alpine Linux installed in system disk mode.
• Internet connectivity, unless the packages have been pre-fetched into a local cache.
• Install appropriate Graphics driver drivers for your hardware. Without graphics drivers, errors are likely to occur when starting your desktop.
• A non-root user account.
• The community repository must be enabled.
• Set up eudev.
• Install and enable D-Bus. Without D-Bus, icons and keyboard shortcuts may be missing.

Tip: Except for the first three Prerequisites, all the other ones are automatically handled, if setup-desktop script is used.

Once the above prerequisites are met, install any desktop of choice either manually or using setup-desktop script.

Basics

• Learn the alpine package keeper basics or refer wiki for more details.
• Install some fonts to make your desktop look better.
• Install the necessary File management packages for automounting of removable storage and browsing of network shares that works seamlessly with file associations.
• Setup a sound server to manage your audio and configure your Bluetooth, if you have one.
• Configure Power management so that your computer switches to a low-power state when inactive or when laptop lid is closed.
• Configure your printer.
• Enable documentation, so man pages are available.
• Install CPU Microcode updates to mitigate processor design bugs.
• Secure your system by installing a firewall software like Alpine Wall or Uncomplicated Firewall.
• To keep your system secure, regularly check and apply updates with the package manager.

Advanced

• Use Flatpak to add packages that are not in the repositories.
• Install gcompat package to add a glibc compatability layer which lets you run glibc binaries.
• Learn basics of openrc, the alpine Linux init system or refer Open rc wiki.
• Upgrade your OS whenever a new stable version of Alpine Linux is released
• Install a sandboxing application like AppArmor or Bubblewrap. AppArmor is more convenient but has less control than Bubblewrap. Bubblewrap is harder to work with but has more control than AppArmor.
• Consider additional security options for your desktop system.
• If you want the rolling release version of Alpine Linux, enable the Edge repository.
• You may want to explore the testing repository, as it provides a lot more applications.

See also

• Desktop section of Tutorials page
• List of all Desktop category pages